Blurred Lines
by aly.lynn122
Summary: A month after the death of their friend and brother-in-arms, Bruce Banner, the team thinks they are finally moving on. But when Tony decides to take a closer look at Bruce's ashes, the Avengers soon learn that not all is as it seems. Sequel to "Too Late"
1. Chapter 1

Tony was in his lab again. Not something uncommon for him, really, but on hour 43 of no sleep, he was pushing his limits. He'd been drinking, like he had every night for a solid month. Before the Avengers, he had been somewhat of an alcoholic. Now, almost 31 days after Bruce Banner's death, he seemed to be sinking back into his old coping habits. No one had the guts to say anything to him, not while they were still trying to battle their own demons.

Clint still hadn't been heard from since his outburst at the funeral, besides for a few "Still alive" texts sent to Natasha at a scheduled time every other week. She replied in kind, and they went their separate ways. Nat buried herself in work, taking mission after mission with barely enough time for a shower in between. Thor spent half of his time at the tower with Tony and Steve and the other half with his girlfriend. The demigod seemed to have trouble coping, as even when with company, Thor would stare off into space and barely keep up his end of the conversation. Steve threw himself into managing the media, lining up false Hulk sightings and answering endless questions about the doctor's absence. SHIELD had said to say he was on leave. The Captain didn't understand it, but then again, he didn't need to understand orders to follow them.

But after completing his latest suit, Tony was bored. There were only so many useless equations he could run before he got tired. It was times like these that he missed Bruce even more. The physicist had seemed to have no end to projects and ideas, and he was always happy to have Tony's help. Now, the lab seemed too empty.

Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Tony pulled out his part of Bruce's ashes. He had enclosed them in a pocket-sized capsule for safe keeping, and since then, the polished metal surface had become his own personal worry stone. The billionaire stared at the ashes in his hand, an idea surfacing. If Bruce wasn't here to give him ideas, maybe studying the gamma radiation from the scientist's remains would help Tony feel closer to his former friend. He knew, somewhere in his logical mind, that the idea made no sense. But, fuck it, when had Tony Stark ever needed justification for his insane ideas, anyways?

Carefully, Tony opened the capsule and let the tiniest portion of ashes fall onto a glass slide, which he promptly suspended with a drop of water and pushed underneath the computerized microscope.

"Jarvis, do an analysis of these for me, will you?" Tony asked, watching the slide click into place through the computer's monitor.

"Of course, sir. Analyzing the properties of the sample now, results will be displayed on the monitor," the AI replied dryly. From his tone, Tony guessed he didn't really approve of treating the doctor's ashes that way, but he was beyond caring. He hadn't spent months bringing Jarvis back online just to get offended at the AI's every opinion. He lazily watched the graphs flicker across the monitor, not really bothering to try and decipher anything until after the analysis.

"Sir, there appears to be some mistake," Jarvis spoke up at he same time the computer monitor stilled, showing a graph consisting of the properties of the ashes, as well as a close up picture of the particles. For a moment, Tony thought he had been tricked. But no, he had taken the ashes out of Bruce's urn himself, straight from the bag they received from SHIELD.

"Jarvis, explain to me how a simple cremation would somehow neutralize a radioactive specimen," the billionaire gasped, looking over the results again. Not a single decimal on the radioactive scale. The remains were human, alright, but…

"It can't, sir."

Tony couldn't quell the beating of his heart as it thumped wildly in his temples, nor did he care about the icy shard currently trying to tear through his gut.

It couldn't be true. Fury wouldn't….

It was.

"This isn't Bruce."


	2. Chapter 2

When Tony found Fury, he was in a meeting with the other Avengers, save for Clint. The director barely blinked an eye in his direction when he slammed through the door in his Iron Man suit.

"Stark, while I appreciate you finally taking the time to attend a debriefing, your enthusiasm is unwarranted. As I recall, your services weren't needed on this assignment."

To everyone's surprise, the inventor didn't respond with his usual sarcasm. Instead, he snapped his faceplate up and aimed a charged repulsor directly at the one-eyed man.

"Where is he?" Tony demanded, eyes narrowed in uncharacteristic ferocity.

"Stark, stand down!" Steve barked, at the same time as Thor rose from his seat.

"Friend Stark, what is your purpose here?"

"These fuckers have Bruce!" was the snarled response, heavy with the promise of violence.

"What are you talking about, Stark?" the Captain questioned, eyes sliding to the director, "Fury?"

"I don't know what he is talking about. Now, would you all calm down so we can discuss this like rational…."

There was a blade at the director's throat, held steadily in the hands of Black Widow herself. She stood before him, eyes hard as steel.

"You're lying," she growled, pressing the blade closer to the man's windpipe. To his credit, the man didn't even flinch.

"You're treading dangerous ground, Romanoff. I understand you, all of you," he gestured to the rest of the room, "are upset, but don't let your grief make you do something you'll regret."

"Stuff it, _Director,"_ the spy snapped, voice dripping with derision. Behind her, there was the distinctive whine of a repulsor getting ready to fire.

"I analyzed the ashes, Fury. Do you really think we're that stupid? There was no radiation. It wasn't him. Now, _where is he?"_

"He's dead, what does it matter?" Fury replied, voice not even slightly off character, even with a weapon at his throat.

"While we could not protect our friend in life, you can be well assured that we will protect him in death. His body should be handled in a manner he would have wished, and we will agree to nothing less. It is the least the good doctor deserves," Thor boomed, pointing his hammer at Fury to accentuate his point.

The director looked imploringly at Steve, as if asking him to get the situation under control.

"Sorry, sir, but they're right. You promised us Bruce's wishes would be respected, and from what I can tell, they haven't been," the Captain said tightly. Fury's eyes narrowed at the room, before a sigh finally escaped his lips and he let his facade fall into a look of exhausted acceptance.

"The Army got him, in case you forgot. For all we know, they are breeding a contingent of Hulks right now. We kept his body for study, so we can develop weapons to combat gamma-powered enemies when we come upon them. At this point, it's a question of when, not if," he said, steadfastly meeting the gaze of Tony with his own defiant spark. 

"We _needed_ this," he added with a huff. To everyone's surprise, Tony chuckled. A dark, quick snort before he scowled again.

"You should have been honest with us. Do you honestly think I would let the military keep any data they got? People really should learn not to store _everything_ electronically. I mean, seriously, it just makes my job that much easier. The data was erased before we had Bruce's ceremony," the billionaire scoffed. His faceplate snapped back down, eyes glowing behind the mask, but at least he lowered the repulser.

"Well, that takes care of that problem. So, give the body to us," Natasha ordered, taking her blade a fraction of an inch away from the director's throat.

"I can't do that, Romanoff."

"Why not?" Steve demanded. The soldier's eyes were as hard as stone, making for an intimidating stare when he approached the older man to stand a few feet in front of him, giving Natasha her space.

"Because, they don't have him," Tony growled from behind them, his metallic voice dripping with ice, "Tell me, director, since when did SHIELD outsource their weapons building to Mexico?"

Everyone in the room jumped when Thor's hammer smacked the polished oak table, shattering it in two. He glared at no one in particular.

"Enough with the games, brothers. I grow tired of this. Let us retrieve the doctor and make haste in our conclusion of this sordid affair. Where might we find him?" the demigod snapped.

"SHIELD sent a shipping crate containing _irradiated materials_ to a base in the Chihuahuan desert in Mexico only a day after we found Bruce in that military facility," Tony replied evenly.

"Look, you need to understand…" Fury started, only to be cut off with a hand from Steve.

"Save it, director. I think we are going to need some space after this. When you're ready to apologize, we'll be back. For now, Avengers, let's roll out. It's time to finish this."

Natasha retracted her blade, shoving Fury to the ground without so much as a look behind her as she stepped away, leaving the room with the rest of her team. Fury's scowl followed them out, even if no one but Thor looked back. When the room was empty, he shook his head mournfully. No one would ever understand the burden he carried, the lengths he had to go to simply to protect his country and his world. Fury wasn't one to get his hands dirty, but the situation had been too perfect to pass up. Somehow, though, he doubted an apology would be all the Avengers required when they found their doctor.


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Bruce registered when he awoke was the pain. His heart was hammering in his chest, the Other Guy battering down the walls in his mind, his skin swelling as it expanded. But he couldn't lose himself to the darkness, let the refreshing rush of green spill over to wash the agony from his body. He could feel the presence in his mind, an angry bubble so near to bursting, but it was as if something coated the Other, slowing his progress with drug-induced sluggishness that brought on another wave of pain in his searing skull. His temples pulsed with pain, but he couldn't push through it to change. The absence of power was almost familiar, were it not for the fact that he could feel his skin bulging, feel his muscles snap. On the drugs he'd been given the last few weeks, the Other had been silent in his mind, his angry counterpart locked up so well, he could barely feel him. Here, he was raging just beneath the surface, teetering on the edge of the transformation, stuck in the eternal loop of fire and pain that preceded the change, but he couldn't complete it. His flesh, though close to tearing, didn't expand any further, his bones trembled, but didn't crack. He sat there, dangling over the precipice for what felt like hours, before he finally coaxed the Other back into his quiet place, trying to remember what rain sounded like on a tin roof. Finally, finally, his skin settled. But the pain didn't leave. If anything, now it was worse, rushing over him like a tidal wave.

Jaw clenched in torment, Bruce tried to open his eyes and make sense of his surroundings. But when his eyelids fluttered open, eyelashes brushing at his hypersensitive skin, he saw only more darkness. As his pupils adjusted, he could see little splotches of light around the corners of his nose, and pinpricks of it through the cloth that covered his eyes. A blindfold. And judging by the feeling of rubber between his teeth, a gag. He bit into it gratefully as another wave of pain rushed over him, vaguely realizing that the gag had stopped him from biting through his tongue. As he writhed, he could tell he was on a softer surface than the metal table where he'd spent the last few weeks. A bed, perhaps. Sparsely cushioned, but heaven to his weary muscles. Even the restraints were softer. Instead of metal, they had the quiet, softly snagging feel of reinforced leather. He supposed the metal collar clamped around his neck had something to do with his new accommodations. Probably a gamma dampener, just enough to prevent him from changing completely, just enough to stop the Other Guy from helping him.

But the blindfold threw him for a loop, as did the bed. Ross didn't care about being seen, never had. A bag over the head while he was transported, sure, but a blindfold even when they weren't moving? Pointless. Ross lived for the jolt of seeing Bruce's eyes bleed green, it was one of his earliest warning signs. As for the bed, well that wasn't Ross at all. Animals didn't deserve creature comforts, especially not monsters. No, whereever he was, he was no longer in the general's custody. Which brought on another torrent of useless questions he would probably never have answered. Bruce thought, perhaps, he remembered Fury's voice, but that wouldn't make sense. If SHIELD had gotten him, the Avengers would be there. Unless, he'd done something terrible, and they'd agreed he needed to be locked up. That might explain the pathetic attempt at keeping him somewhere comfortable. But why the blindfold? Steve knew about his aversion to the dark, anyone who read his file would have. And no matter what he'd done, he doubted Captain America would allow psychological torture, especially for a man he had once called his friend.

So, no, not the Avengers. But that didn't exactly rule out SHIELD, either. They had built him a cage, at one point, after all. Obviously, they weren't above imprisoning him, no matter what lame excuses Fury had tried to shove down Bruce's throat. But what use would they have with him? And why would they go through the trouble of removing him from Ross' custody when they were doing, as it seemed, the same thing the general had been?

Mind racing, Bruce tried to focus on the sound of rain on a tin roof again. He thought of his home in Calcutta, the sounds of the hustle and bustle outside his thin walls, the cry of chickens and shouts of vendors on the dusty streets. But those sounds are chased from his head when he hears the dreaded sound of the door opening. All at once, Bruce is aware of his vulnerability. He won't see anything coming until it is too late, even if he could do anything being gagged, blinded, and restrained anyways. Fighting against another surge of panic, he lances onto the pain that gurgles in the back of his brain, clinging to the grounding sting that throws him into acute awareness.

"Doctor Banner, it is a pleasure to meet you, though I do wish it was under better circumstances," a low voice said to his left. Instantly, Bruce catalogued his surroundings. A small room, judging by how close the door had sounded, entrance to the left, by his feet. He was probably in a corner, though he couldn't feel a wall with his hand, so there was probably a bit of space on either side of the bed. The voice was low and gruff, a man's, sounding middle aged, with a thick southern accent. Unless this man was imported, he was probably somewhere near Texas or Georgia. But he could very well be imported. The fresh scent in the air told him the place he was held was dusty, and he could hear the whirr of air conditioners behind the open door, a sound which had been absent before. So his room was soundproofed, then. But also, they were someplace hot, with dust in the air. A desert? A desert in the South. He heard footsteps approach him, thin-soled shoes on cement. The door behind the man closed with a heavy thud, though it was somewhat muffled. A metal door, with some sort of padding, probably more soundproofing material. The hum of the air conditioner was cut off. The only thing he could hear now was footsteps. Thin soles, which meant the man wasn't wearing combat boots or sneakers, so he probably wasn't a soldier. Thin soles usually meant comfort, or professional. The man was probably a scientist, or a doctor. Or, perhaps, a spokesman.

"I apologize for the blindfold, we have a number of people working here, and they would feel better with some degree of anonymity. As for the gag, well that is for your comfort. We are required to run a number of tests during your stay here, and some of them won't tickle quite so much. I'll apologize in advance for those."

Stay? Anonymity? Well, that implied that they intended to let him go at some point…. But, to where? No, those words were specifically chosen to make him more compliant. If he thought he might be let go, he wouldn't fight quite so much. The blindfold was simply an attempt to make him feel helpless. Which, unfortunately, was working. That, and, well, it was hard to experiment on someone when you had to look them in the eye.

"We'll try to keep you comfortable, doctor, please try not to worry. We'll give you pain medication and put you under for the more sensitive procedures. We aren't animals here. However, with your low weight and your… condition, it'll be hard to determine just how much we can safely to give you. To err on the side of caution, the doses probably won't be strong enough to do much more than take the edge off. For that, I'm sorry, but there isn't much else we can do without risking sending you into a coma. And we're going to need that brilliant mind of yours, eventually. You're going to be saving a lot of lives, Dr. Banner, so perhaps that will help you rest easy."

Bruce heard packaging rustle, and the sound of a cap being popped off of something. Suddenly, there was a slight sting in his upper arm. He tried to move out of the needle's reach, feeling fabric bunch underneath him as he did. Well, the sweatpants were certainly a welcome change. The smooth hide of the bed gripped his bare shoulders as he moved, leading to the conclusion that it was some sort of leather. But a steadying hand on his chest stopped him, the palm pushing down almost painfully on a series of stitches in his chest. When had he been cut open? Ross had done that, sure, but ages ago. The stitches had already been removed. If he had been out long enough for them to have already done a procedure on him, what else had he missed?

"It's a dose of morphine, doctor, for the pain. And it should help you drift off while I take some samples," the voice drawled on, conversational as if he was discussing a recipe.  
Samples? Bruce's mind wandered, hoping it would just be blood samples. His antecubital areas were so scarred, he wouldn't even feel the needle going in.

But then he felt the cool kiss of an alcohol wipe on his hips as his pants were tugged down to expose the flesh above his iliac crest. Bone marrow samples. Inwardly, he groaned, just as he felt the soothing warmth of morphine flow through him. True to the man's word, it took the edge off of his pain, but even that wasn't enough to erase the burning that spasmed through his bloodstream when the needle crunched past his outer bone. To his credit, he was able to keep himself from crying out, though. Instead, he bit down on the gag and stifled his shout into a whimper. The needle remained in for what felt like unbearably long time, and eventually the morphine won out and he sank gratefully into the silence.

When he awoke, he was alone again. He could feel a bandage on his hip, and an IV in his right arm, but the agony was already back. He could hear the beeping of a heart monitor to his right, between the bed and the wall, but as it sped up, no medication seeped through the IV. Just an endless supply of fluids. Whatever was coming next, they wanted him awake.


	4. Chapter 4

"Stark, hold on a minute, will you?" Steve called when they got back to the tower. The billionaire had been silently fuming the entire flight away from the helicarrier, bolting off the quinjet the first moment he got.

Everyone had been quiet on the ride over. It was a terrible thought, that they had failed their friend even in death. But none seemed to be taking it quite so hard as Stark. The inventor didn't even turn to heed the Captain's call, just kept walking towards the door and dodging the equipment meant for detaching his Iron Man suit.

"Tony, wait!" Steve tried again, fingers brushing the man's elbow as he tried to catch him. This time, the billionaire did turn, and it was only then that the soldier was able to see the tears shimmering in his dark eyes.

"For what, Steve? I fucked up, alright? I know that. I should have checked the records sooner. God damn, I was so fucking _stupid_. Who in their right mind would trust Fury to do the right thing?"

Tony looked directly in Steve's eyes, as if daring him to say something, daring him to say it wasn't his fault.

Instead, the Captain did something he never thought he'd do. He simply stepped forward and wrapped his arms around the shorter man's shoulders, clasping him tightly in his embrace. For a moment, the inventor stiffened, and Steve worried he would push him away. Relief flooded through him when Tony instead relaxed into the embrace, shoulders trembling as his forehead fell to rest on Steve's shoulder. To anyone else, the moment might have looked serene, but Steve was shaking just as much as the man he held. _Tony Stark_ was crying on his shoulder, because with his best friend gone, and Pepper having left him months ago, he was all alone. Inwardly, Rogers cursed himself for letting it go on so long, letting Stark keep to himself and hide beneath his attitude for so long. As a Captain, and as a friend, he should have known. Tony had no one, now. Not a single soul to confide in, and Steve had been too lost in his own guilt to see it. Of course he wasn't the only one blaming himself, but damn if he was going to let Tony face another day with this burden on his shoulders.

"We'll get him back. We'll make this right," the soldier whispered into his ear, purposely keeping the tremble from his voice. Tears burned the back of his own eyes, but this was not the time to release them. Right now, Tony needed him. And right now, Bruce needed them.  
Stark seemed to have the same thoughts, because after a moment, he pulled away from the embrace long enough to tell Jarvis to alert his pilot and get a jet ready, because they were leaving in an hour. With a final squeeze of the shoulder, Steve let Tony go, grateful to see his eyes clearer now. The man walked away with a nod, to go do whatever it was he needed to prepare for the mission. Rogers turned around to find Natasha and Thor looking at him, the redhead quirking a smirk that didn't reach her eyes. Thor seemed lost to himself, looking like he had when he had learned of the doctor's death in the first place. Steve cursed himself again for not making sure the man had seen the body before they cremated it, to get that sense of closure the rest of them had gotten. This time, he would make sure the thunderer got to say his goodbyes properly.

"Rogers, what are your orders?" Natasha asked after a moment. She was never one that liked to stand around idly, especially when the body of the man she loved was being treated like a science experiment. The possessiveness she had for his corpse surprised her. She'd never really been one for sentiment. If her comrades fell in the field, she accepted their loss and moved on. Never before had she had the urge to hold their corpse in her arms, or kiss their forehead in goodbye. But with Bruce, she was almost excited at the prospect of seeing his face again, even if the body would be mostly preservatives by now. In some horrific, distant part of her mind, she wondered if they had skinned him, if there would even be a face left to see. Those thoughts were quickly banished, if not completely forgotten. Images like that were not what she wanted to think about right now.

"I assume you're going to be coming with us. So for now, go pack, grab everything you need, and tell Barton. He'd want to know," Steve replied, earning an approving nod from the spy before she ran off to do as he asked.

"And what would you have of me, friend?" Thor prompted, watching the redhead go.

"Would I be correct in assuming you'll also be coming with us?" Rogers returned, crossing his arms as he surveyed the demigod with curiosity. Thor had surprised him these last few months. While he had always been physically affectionate to those he liked, he had really stepped up on the touches these last few weeks. Forthcoming with both words of praise and gestures of understanding, the man had seemed to make it his mission in life that none of his teammates forget their worth, or their importance in his life. It was as if Bruce's death had opened his eyes to how pathetically short mortal lives were, as he called them. Perhaps the demigod was already preparing himself for the day he would have to bid farewell to the rest of them, as well.

"I should not be happy to find myself left behind again, Captain. My place is with the team, especially on matters concerning our fallen brother."

"Alright, then go gather what you'll need. Meet us in the common room in thirty, that should be enough time for Stark to get a car for us," Steve said. Thor smiled, clasping him on the shoulder before departing after Natasha.

"Jarvis, relay those instructions to Tony and Natasha, if you will. I don't want to delay any longer than we have to," Rogers added as he stepped into the elevator. It seemed Thor had taken the stairs, or had simply flown to his own balcony to reach his floor. The soldier was alone.

Only then did Steve allow his shoulders to sag, and a few burning tears to sneak past his own heavy defenses. The news of Fury's betrayal was like ripping the scab off a burning wound and soaking in with rubbing alcohol. The knowledge that he had failed his teammate, once again, stung more than anything else. But this time, he was going to make sure things were made right, if it was the last thing he did.


	5. Chapter 5

Bruce groaned, feeling the ache in his limbs as he stretched. It was his first time in months being able to move freely. Even if he was only let out for the purpose of being used to build a weapon, the ability to pop his back alone almost made his agreement worth it. Almost.  
Inwardly, he grimaced. They hadn't even needed to torture him. All they had to offer him was the ability to put on a shirt and walk around a lab freely for a few hours (under observation and supervision, of course), and he had caved. Tony Stark had withstood torture in an underground cave for weeks, while connected to a car battery with shrapnel in his chest. Bruce had been used as a lab rat, and all it took to turn him into a traitor was to restrain him for a few weeks and show him an ounce of compassion.

But then again, his captors were undoubtedly American, and had assured him of that several times. Bruce had never really had a concept of patriotism considering the American government had sent him on the run. But, it wasn't really betraying his team, right? He wasn't building weapons that would hurt them. He had agreed to build weapons that would hurt _him._ And in the long run, wasn't that a good thing?

Had someone asked him this a year ago, when he was on the run and still hiding the Hulk away like an embarrassing birth defect, he would have said that weapons built to take down the Hulk were a godsend. But he'd made peace with his green side since then, acknowledged the anger that was constantly bubbling beneath his conscious mind and had begun using his curse to help others. Now, both he and the Hulk were a hero, and putting out weapons that could be used against him didn't seem like he was siding with justice. But, then again, no amount of heroics would bring back the lives he'd destroyed.

He was led to a lab, such a pathetic, tiny thing compared to his own labs at Stark Tower. But, then again, you needed more equipment to save lives than to destroy them. Somehow, he doubted any of the technology here would be used to help improve the lives of anyone. Still, the set up was a breath of fresh air. His hands weren't bound, he was even given a lab jacket. Were it not for the collar around his neck, he might have been able to close his eyes and convince himself he was home. _Home._ Well, been a long time since he had called a place that. Still, wasn't it the truth?

"You'll find everything you need here, Dr. Banner. And if you find anything lacking, just let me know and we'll procure it for you," the accented man said. He was the only one who spoke to the doctor. Even now, though, his face was covered by a heavy welder's mask. All that peeked through the anonymity was a close-cropped head of golden hair, and hands with sun-kissed skin. Compared to Bruce's own pasty complexion, the man resembled the cover of a surfing magazine.

"Alright, thank you," the doctor murmured, squeezing his hands at his sides to prevent himself from wringing them. He needed to appear confident. Even if he hadn't completely decided whether he was going to build a weapon or not, he needed them to believe he was convinced.

"I'm sure this goes without saying, but we expect results sooner rather than later. We're on a tight schedule, so we'll need to see some actual progress, like a working blueprint, before we carry on with more experiments. But don't dally to avoid them, you won't be getting a wink of sleep or a bite to eat until we have something worthy of those brains everyone keeps gushing over. Alright?"

Through the mask, the man's voice was distorted in a way that was achingly familiar to Tony's, and for once, Bruce allowed himself to think of the man without shying away. He tried to picture the billionaire's warm hand around his shoulders as he lead him on a tour of the lab, or of Natasha's fingers brushing his cheeks. How long had it been? Weeks? Months? There was no way of knowing how long he was out, and he already knew asking his captors was pointless. They would keep him powerless. No natural light, no method of measuring the time. He'd even tried counting seconds, but lost track when they kept drugging him. No, this was his reality now, and for the foreseeable future. And without fluids being pumped into his system, he would need to make his decision quickly on whether or not to build weapons for them. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to contemplate what sort of weapon even _could_ make an impact against the Hulk, but that thought was quickly chased away when fingers snapped in front of his face.

"Doctor, I suggest you get started. It's going to be a long day if you sit there with your thumb up your ass."

Bruce gave the man a quick, measured nod before turning to survey the lab in detail. There were old school computers, with monitors and wires (not like the cordless, futuristic tablets and holograms of Tony's labs) sitting on the table, along with text books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other outdated reference materials. Judging by all of that, Bruce guessed he wouldn't be getting access to a computer with internet access anytime soon. Plus, there were no physical building materials, so they would probably entrust him with blueprints only. For the time being. That certainly put a chink in his plans, but he could work with it.

Despite the circumstances, it felt amazing to be working again. The hours passed by in a blur as he set to mapping equations. Just simple things at first, like running algorithms to determine the Hulk's damage resistance levels, something he'd never been able to actually put a number to. Still, his captors didn't need to know that. He ran other scenarios as well, such as the strength of two metals fortified together, or what temperature would be needed to even make a weapon out of those metals. He'd always loved math, it was part of what drove him to physics. Numbers couldn't lie, had no motive of their own. They were easy to track, weigh, manipulate, and work with. In a word, they were predictable. Math relied on patterns and rules. If he looked close enough, he'd be able to predict what was coming with a certainty he could never entrust to humans. He had a passion for biochemistry, too, but physics was where his heart was. And weapons were oh, so simple. All he had to do was calculate how much force it would take to shatter the target, and then he went through different compounds and barrel specs until he got the velocity and damage quota he needed. The only problem with this, however, was that he had no idea how much damage the Hulk could withstand. Even alien weapons had barely made a dent against him. He'd pummeled a Chitauri ship into the ground with a single blow. As far as Bruce knew, there was no way possible to determine the force needed to even make a dent in his green side.

And yet, that was exactly what he'd have to do. Nothing was impossible. He used to think it would be impossible to suppress the Other Guy, but here he was with nothing but a simple gamma dampening collar emitting some sort of signal into his brain, at the same time as it pumped drugs through his carotid and into his heart, that was somehow able to render him into a harmless lap dog. Well, at least that's what they thought. But the truth was, it had never been only the Hulk that made Bruce dangerous. Being smart had lended itself to many terrible actions before, and it wasn't completely outside his nature to lie, deceive, and mislead in order to achieve his own ends. Now, he merely wanted freedom, and his moral code couldn't object to doing whatever was necessary to make that happen.

 _Could it?_


	6. Chapter 6

By the time he finally managed to put together a blueprint that would suffice to make it look like he was cooperating, Bruce was parched and exhausted. His fingers had begun shaking five minutes into picking up a pencil, and his legs nearly gave out under him when he had turned around to look through the reference materials. Months of atrophy would do that, he supposed, but he still couldn't help but wonder if something in the suppressants they were giving him could be playing a part in his general weakness. This wasn't the longest stint he'd spent in restraints, and constant bouts of torture tended to strain his muscles enough to prevent a significant loss of tissue. Plus, the Other Guy gave him better stamina than that, even when drugged into oblivion.

It could have been the fatigue, the torture, or the knowledge that these weapons would be used against him, but whatever the case, Bruce found very little enthusiasm for this project. He hadn't necessarily expected to be glad of the work, but he had at least thought running the numbers would give him some spark of emotion. Instead, he felt nothing but apathy and fear, with just a hint of disgust towards himself. This, he chased away with the reasoning that the weapon wouldn't really do any damage. It was designed to look impressive and might even give the Hulk a little sting, but it wouldn't do a thing to non-gamma powered beings, besides maybe tickle them a bit. He wasn't really giving them anything they could use against him or the other Avengers.

"I'm done," he said finally, turning to the man in the corner. It wasn't the same scientist that had lead him here. This man wore a doctor's mask, sunglasses, and had his hoodie pulled up over his hair. Obviously, he was some sort of soldier, as he left the room without a word and came back a few minutes later with the lead scientist in tow. The man had decided against his welder's mask, apparently, and had thrown on a ski mask. It was almost comical looking, especially when Bruce could see the man was bare chested under his lab coat. It must have been nighttime. Either that, or the scientist slept on a different schedule than everyone else.

As he walked closer, Bruce took in the chapped look of his lips, and the hazel of his eyes. Should he come face to face with this man without a mask, he would need to identify him. His left eye had a fleck of brown right next to his pupil. The physicist took a mental note of that, committing it to memory in the sharp recesses of his mind. He'd always been good with faces.

"Let me see what you have, Banner," the man ordered, a slight yawn coming out with his words. Bruce wondered whether he had intentionally left his title of "doctor" off his name, but didn't question it as he stepped aside to let the blonde look at the blueprints on the computer. He would know in a moment whether the man was a real scientist or not.

He got his answer when his captor turned toward him with a snarl, hand connecting with his cheek before Bruce had the chance to deflect the blow. God, he'd forgotten how much a well-aimed slap could hurt. There would definitely be a bruise in the morning. Yet, despite the abuse, there wasn't even a whisper from the darker part of his mind. The Hulk was very well locked away. Bruce couldn't even find the strength to summon his anger, let alone the transformation.

"Do you think I'm an idiot? Left to his devices for over twenty hours, and the best the _great_ Dr. Robert Bruce Banner could come up with is the equivalent of a cork gun?!"

The blonde descended on him with another blow, this time a fist ramming painfully into his healing ribs. Stifling a shout, Bruce fell to the floor. Sometimes, this made the abuse end more quickly. Kicking wasn't quite as fun as splitting your knuckles on someone's cheekbone. But instead of delivering a kick, the man yanked him up by his collar, ignoring the sound of tearing fabric.

"I've tried to be nice, Banner, but we're putting a stop to your pathetic little rebellion right now. Think of us what you will, but there are people right now who are dead, because of you. If you really want to make their deaths mean something, you will help us. But how silly of me, to think I could appeal to the moral code of a _monster_."

The last word was growled with such ferocity, Bruce could feel himself shaking. Spittle flew from the man's mouth to splatter across his face. The man held him just below eye level, just low enough that Bruce couldn't get a good grip on the ground, and his bare feet scampered across the tile uselessly. Still, he just stared blankly back at his tormentor, trying not to let anything show. For once, he must have been successful, because the man dropped him to the ground like a sack of rotten vegetables.

"Let me show you what happens when you don't cooperate, _doctor_ , so you can understand what exactly is at stake here."

He pulled something out of his lab coat too quickly for Bruce to see, and suddenly, there was a sharp prick in his neck right underneath the collar. He barely had time to register that he had been injected with something before the black began swimming at the corners of his vision. A smirk picked at the corners of his lips, and he was too far gone to hold it back. Sometimes men, like numbers, were predictable too.


	7. Chapter 7

When Bruce awoke, it took him a few minutes to figure out that he was actually awake. The room around him was dark, pitch black with not even a speck of light anywhere. He was suspended from something, hanging limply from the ceiling by his wrists, feet only barely grazing the floor. From the pain in his shoulder and the numbness of his right arm, he could tell his shoulder was out of socket.

All in all, he was surprised that was the only damage. His ribs hurt, he was lightheaded, and he had a few bruises that also might have been cracked bones, but he had endured much, much worse. If they were trying to intimidate him into building weapons, they would need to do much more.

At least, that was what he thought for the first few hours. The pain was manageable for a while, he was able to shift on the balls of his feet to take some of the weight off his wrists. But after a lengthier span of time, his legs started to shake, and his left ankle wouldn't take weight anymore.

Suddenly, a shrill beep tore through his ear, causing him to throw his head back with a scream. His head erupted with fire, and Bruce could feel blood trickling from his ear canals. The blood-curdling screech pulsed in his ear for what felt like an eternity before finally fading away, but the damage was done. All he could hear was a high-pitched ringing in his ears, and a part of him wondered if he was going to be deaf. The other part of him, a logical voice buried in the back of his mind, reminded him that this was simply psychological torture. He'd dealt with worse, and everything would be healed once the Hulk was able to break free. But that voice did little against the surging panic rising in his throat.  
Suspended in the air, tongue dry and useless in his throat, ears ringing and damaged, peering uselessly into the darkness that surrounded him, Bruce was completely robbed of his senses. He felt like a little boy again, locked in the broom closet, curling up on himself to chase away the chill of the cement floor. At least then, he had had clothes and a bit of light from under the crack. Here, there was nothing. He couldn't even hum or talk to keep himself grounded. He felt his throat moving, but heard nothing. Nothing but a constant, painful tone that was impossible to ignore. Pain...pain he could ignore. But this? Left to nothing but his own thoughts, his own distorted version of reality that was slowly creeping towards flashbacks….. No, this was something else entirely.

As he watched, the darkness morphed and changed. The ringing in his ears became the sound of a woman's scream, and he could see her body collapse onto the driveway, an impossible amount of blood pooling around her open skull. He'd dissected the dead mice he found in Dad's traps, he knew what brain tissue looked like, and he'd read enough books to know that there was no saving someone with the backside of their skull crushed in, her occipital lobe painting the pavement. And Dad was still going, bashing the other side of her head in, blood splattering under his fists with the unmistakable crack of bones. By the time Bruce reached them, he barely recognized Mom's face. It was a mess of torn, mashed in tissue around a pair of fists buried wrist deep in the gore.

Despite knowing it was hopeless, Bruce tried to push his father off of her body, resulting in a blood-soaked set of knuckles pummeling into his cheek. The man turned his attention to him, pounding blow after blow into the eight-year-old's small head, until he couldn't tell whether it was his wife's or his son's blood coating his arms. Through it all, Bruce could hear the crazed man muttering "monster" over and over like a sick prayer. And who was he to argue? This was his fault. This was all his fault.  
He could still hear that mantra on his father's lips as he frantically dashed down to the school basement to disarm the bomb that was blowing in less than forty seconds. He'd been so sure when he placed it. The taunts and jeers of the kids who watched him get clobbered at recess every day had filled his head, and he thought of the teachers who closed their blinds to the scene inside their classrooms. But now, he could only hear his father's voice chanting, and feel blood on his face. He couldn't picture the image of the teens who beat him day in and day out, all he could see was the excited faces of the upcoming Freshman who were touring the school that day; could only see his science teacher's face as he told his daughter he loved her and would see her after school when she called to tell him she was sick. But he would never see his daughter, and those fourteen-year-olds would never make it to high school. All because of him.

 _No._

And that had been all he needed. Two hours later, he was sitting in the principal's office while the press hounded the teachers outside, and a gruff military officer was looking at him like he was the answer to all of his prayers. " _You're going to go places, son."_

He certainly hadn't been saying that when he had dragged Betty out of Bruce's car when they got back from their Spring Break trip. Then, he hadn't been good enough, would never be good enough for the General's daughter. And he still wasn't, even years later when he was a scientist with his own team. Still, when Betty smiled at him before that green light flashed in front of his eyes, he could see how much it didn't matter. She loved him, he had been able to see it in her eyes. But Ross had been right, in the end. He'd reminded Bruce of that when he shoved him out of her hospital room and into the arms of waiting National Guard troops, but not before Bruce saw the battered, pale body laying on the hospital bed. So much like his mother, only a few more blows away from death. Ross was right, his father was right, the scientist here was right. He was a monster. Had been a monster long before the Hulk, and would be a monster no matter how many people he managed to help. He could never atone for the lives he'd destroyed, the lives he'd _taken._ He'd spent his entire life telling himself he wouldn't end up like his father, and yet, he had. He'd killed people, put the woman he loved in mortal danger, and hadn't even been able to kill himself before the military got a hold of his blood. Now, his body count would be in the thousands instead of hundreds. And he was refusing to help.

Tears streamed down his cheeks. Lost in his memories, he was both a young child cowering under the kitchen table and a grown man pulling a blanket tighter around him in a metal cell. He was a frail teenager being beaten into the pavement of the basketball court, and a giant green beast launching himself at a helicopter. He was a preteen sitting in a therapist's office complaining that he hadn't _meant_ to hurt his little cousin, and he was a man standing in remnants of Tony's living room, looking down at the crater he had made playing hackey sack with a living being. He was all of these things, and yet none of them. Everything, and nothing. Such a perfect sentiment for a monster.

 _Monster._


	8. Chapter 8

Tony didn't speak on the way there. Nothing Steve said could pull him from his funk. Thor and Natasha were trying to play a half-hearted game of Go Fish (the only game Thor knew how to play), but weren't making any progress. Steve just stared out the window, trying to quell the emptiness clawing at his stomach.

This was too reminiscent of a mission months ago, one that would never leave them. At least, this time going in, they knew they were rescuing a corpse. Well, what was left of one after being at the hands of SHIELD for so long.

Nausea rolled in Steve's abdomen once more, not helped at all by the recycled air and pressure of the cabin. Captain America did not get sick, but he held a barf bag emblazoned with _Stark Air_ anyways. After all, they had all thought Bruce Banner couldn't die, too.

* * *

Tony took a sip of his scotch, feeling the familiar warmth surge through him. In the past hour of flying, he had let a refreshing numbness wash over him. Right now, all he felt was anger. Anger at Fury for lying, at Steve for not acting sooner all those months ago, at himself for not realizing, for not _listening_.

Bruce had been trying to tell him that someone was after him. Big Green had wanted to run after they dealt with Ultron. Had Tony not managed to override the autopilot, he would have.

And later, he had found Bruce writing goodbye letters at the kitchen counter in the middle of the night, eyes glassy and red.

 _"You really think I'd let anyone waltz in here and take you?"_

 _"It wouldn't be up to you, Tony,"_

 _"Bruce, come on, give me a chance here. Can you trust me to handle this?"_

 _"It's not you I don't trust. Ross will stop at nothing, and he will get an arrest warrant eventually. Best I leave now before they close down the borders."_

 _"Three days, Brucie. Give me three days."_

 _"You're not going to let this go, are you?"_

 _"Not a chance."_

 _"Alright, three days."_

Rule one about life on the run, as Bruce had once told him, was to always trust your instincts. In the end, it had been Tony who needed to trust Bruce, not the other way around. The man had evaded and escaped the US government over half a decade for a reason. No matter how much Cap had delayed simply breaking into the prison, it was Tony's fault that Bruce had gotten captured in the first place. It's been two days after that conversation that Jarvis had called to say Ross was in the tower. The bastard had waited until Tony left. He'd been stuck on the helicarrier, watching Bruce be lead out in chains on a live feed. By the time he reached the tower, he was too late.

That seemed to be the theme to his life. Too late to find out his father loved him, too late to save Yensin, too late to spare Pepper her torture, too late to save Bruce. If someone wrote a biography about him.. Well, another biography about him, they should entitle it _Too Late._

* * *

Thor couldn't focus on the cards. He couldn't remember whether he told her to Go Fish when he had a card or he didn't. He also didn't know if deception was allowed in this game, but he was beyond caring. He used to play this game with Bruce, sometimes, when their services weren't required on the battlefield. Neither him nor Hulk were very good at stealth. Banner, as it turned out, was a very good card player. He'd been trying to teach Thor other games before he'd been taken.

Such fragile things mortal lives were. He had known this when he began dating Jane, and he had been prepared for it with his friends. Every battle, he was ready to see his friends die a warrior's death. If anything had been able to kill Hulk, he hadn't expected to survive the battle long enough to worry about mourning the beast and the man.

Despite seeing the pictures, he still couldn't quite wrap his head around the fact that the good doctor was gone. Silently, he prayed the man would prepare a place for him at the table in Valhalla.

* * *

Natasha had always known she would outlive Bruce. One didn't date someone fifteen years their senior without preparing themselves for the day they might have to bury them, but this was much sooner than she thought possible.

A part of her wished she could have run with him when he asked. The logical part of her knew that Ultron might have won were it not for Bruce's intelligence and Hulk's raw power, but emotions couldn't be talked down with logic.

No, she still regretted not running with him, even though he had never asked again. Their romance had been a bit difficult after that. Then again, she did push him down a giant hole, so that would probably cause a bit of resentment in the long run.

But despite their problems, despite Bruce constantly telling her that she deserved better, their relationship had been a sweet one. He was so different from the few men she had dated, and the first relationship she thought there might be a future in. She'd had her share of partners and flings, but never love. And that was what they had been creeping towards. Slowly, oh so slowly, both afraid they might spook the other who had only ever known pain when others got close.

For a long time, Bruce refused sex. Not because he was scared he would change or because he was worried about hurting her, but because he wanted it to mean something to her, as well. Sex was just a tool of the trade for Natasha, so she had never seen why it was a big deal to just lay back and take it when her partner's needed release. It relaxed them, and it was one of the few things she could offer.

But Bruce had been different. It didn't matter how far into it they were, if her eyes glassed over and she got that far-off look, he would stop. Several times it was in the middle of intercourse. He would see she wasn't into it, and go take care of his problem himself. When Nat had asked him why he didn't just finish when they had already started, he had simply stared at her and taken her into his arms. It was only then that she knew she was upset, when she was able to press her face into the clean cotton of his shirt, take in his smell, and release the pressure she put on herself.

 _"If I wanted sex, I'd go to a whore house. I want to make love, Tasha, and I won't have a partner who is less than willing."_

 _"Bruce, it's not like you're raping me. It just isn't very often I get in the mood. It meant nothing for so long, it's rare for me to actually want it for myself. You shouldn't have to suffer because of that."_

 _"When we are intimate, I'm not doing it cause I need to get off. I've known how to do that myself for longer than you've been alive. I want to be intimate so I can see you, all of you, and show you what you mean to me. So, if it's rare that we actually make love, then that's fine. If we never had sex again, I'd still be happy just having you in my life. You're worth so much more than just sex, Tasha."_

That had been the first time either of them said the L word out loud. Since that day, neither of them had said it again. But, they didn't have sex unless Natasha instigated it, either. And to say Bruce was a generous lover would be an understatement. At every step, he would look into her eyes to ensure she was present, and enjoying it. He had wanted her there, sharing the moment with him, and that was when she had known she was much deeper than she had ever meant to be.

Now, it was gone, and she felt like an idiot for thinking anything could last. Love was for children and Disney movies.


	9. Chapter 9

When the team landed just outside the military base, they could instantly tell the search would be fruitless. There weren't any guards, no disturbed dust from vehicles or foot traffic, nothing but a washed out building that was crumbling in some places.

Still, they moved through the base from room to room, roof to floor, trying to find even a strand of Bruce's hair.

There was nothing.

At least, there was nothing until an arrow landed in the wall two feet from Steve's head. Immediately, all weapons were drawn and pointed towards the doorway at the opposite end of the hall, where a figure perched on top of the frame and he partially open door, hidden in a dark corner of the ceiling.

"I was wondering when you'd notice me. What's a guy gotta do to get a hello around here?" Clint laughed, hopping down from his perch to land gracefully on the dusty floor.

" _Barton?_ " Steve drawled, as if waking up from a deep sleep. The archer replied with another laugh as he joined the group, stopping a few feet in front of them.

"Good to see you're alive," Natasha greeted, a wry smirk decorating her otherwise emotionless face.

"You too, Tasha, been a while. How are you all holding up?" Clint asked, eyes drifting over the group in an arc.

"Been better. What are you doing here?" Tony replied, fixing the man with a glare. Clint smiled again, but this close, they could see it didn't reach his eyes. Instead, they blazed with a fury the rest of them could easily recognize. They were the Avengers, after all.

"I'm here to find a friend." 

* * *

Sure enough, there had been something at the base when Clint had arrived. A SHIELD agent that had been watching the area as per Fury's orders. He was locked up in one of the ancient bathrooms, hands cuffed behind his back, sporting a bloodied, broken nose to show he'd been stupid enough to try and take on Hawkeye.

The agent began trembling the moment Steve went in. He could probably feel the anger coming off of him in boiling waves. A single glare from the Captain nearly had the bound man pissing himself.

"Listen closely, because I am only going to say this once. If you want to get out of here with enough of your body left to throw at Fury's feet and ask forgiveness, you'll tell me where I can find my friend's body. Understood?" Steve ordered, earning a hurried nod from the agent.

"I don't know where his body is, specifically, but I've heard tell of a base out in Nevada where our best radiobiologists were sent. Please, believe me, that's all I know," he stammered, wriggling his arms in his bonds.

"Where in Nevada?" Clint demanded, notching an arrow aimed directly at the agent's eye.

"Woah, what the hell?" the man gasped, scrambling for purchase on the dusty floor, weakly attempting to escape.

"Clint, put the arrow down, we're not here to kill anyone," Steve ordered sharply, fixing the archer with his best commanding stare. He barely recognized the man who stared back. Teeth bared like an animal, eyes blazing with fury, one finger loosely on the bowstring like he barely had a reason not to fire it.

"Where in Nevada?" he repeated, ignoring Steve completely.

"Get that thing outta my face, man, what the fuck?!"

The agent was beyond hearing the question. Judging by the acrid scent in the air, he actually had pissed himself now. Still, Steve didn't take his eyes off of Clint.

"Barton! Stand down!" he barked, trying to jolt him out of his focus. Of course, Hawkeye never took his eyes off the target, even if his Captain ordered it. Blantantly ignoring everyone else still, he approached the agent curled up on the floor, hovering over his head with mere inches between the tip of his arrow and the side of the coward's skull.

"Clint, you need to think this through," Natasha piped up, taking a tentative step towards the pair.

"Sorry, Tasha, Banner was the brains of the team. I'm just a weapon, point me and I shoot. And right now, this guy is refusing to show me my target. Until that changes, he ought to paint a bullseye on his head."

Tony shouted a mild, half-hearted, "Hey" in his direction in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but no one paid him any attention.

"Now," Clint growled, turning back to the hostage, " _Where in Nevada?"_

"The Great Basin Desert. I don't know anything more than that, I swear to fucking god. I swear!" the agent pleaded, clenching his eyes shut when Clint drew the bow tighter.

"Barton, we got what we need to know. We can have Jarvis scan the area and report and facilities that might fit what we're looking for. _Stand down."_ Steve tried again, and this time, the archer backed off, though he still kept his arrow notched, if only aimed at the ground now.

"You better pray we find something," Natasha snarled to the agent before knocking him out with a roundkick to the head. Steve glared at her, but didn't say anything.

* * *

" _Barton!_ What the hell was that?" Steve snapped once they were back on the quinjet, with Clint's bow and arrows safely stowed on his back.

"I told you, Steve, I'm done with your orders. We will find him this time, _before_ it's too late," the archer replied, tossing a shrug in the Captain's direction. The motion was a stark contrast to the anger simmering in his gaze.

"We're already too late, Barton. Don't you get that? Shooting agents and creating national security incidents isn't going to get us Banner back alive. We're getting a body back, a body that holds secrets to a weapon no one should have the power to wield."

"So, that's all he was to you in the end? A weapon? A _tool_?"

Steve sighed, taking a moment to breathe deeply and collect himself before responding.

"Of course not, but Banner isn't in that body anymore, either," he replied softly after his breathing had slowed.

"No, he's dead, because _you_ didn't want to get your pretty hands dirty." Clint's eyes watered, but his words cut deeper than his pain. The look of hurt on the Captain's face was enough to send his anger running with tail tucked.

"Fuck, Steve, I didn't mean that, I'm sorry," he started, only to be cut off by a gloved hand cutting the air between them.

"Don't, don't. You did mean that, and that's precisely the problem, you're right." Steve's soft voice didn't waver, but he felt tears pool in his lower eyelid.

"Steve, that's not…" Tony tried, but a look from Natasha stopped him.

"Captain, this isn't just on you. It's on all of us. We all could have done more, but dwelling on it won't change anything now," she reasoned.

"That may be true, but I still let him down. As leader of this team, it's my _job_ to keep you all safe. And believe it or not, I take that job seriously. Banner didn't deserve what he got, and I didn't protect him the way I should have, but you're right. There is no point dwelling on it. All we can do is remember him, and promise to do better by him," Steve replied, tossing Natasha a grateful look.

"Pretty speech, _Captain_ , but I'm not in the mood for your sentimental bullshit," Clint spat, then stalked off to the other side of the quinjet to sit alone. Steve stood where he had been, noticing the air was suddenly much colder. Like ice.

"Natasha?" he prompted, turning to look the redhead in the eye.

"On it," she replied with a curt nod, before running off to join Clint on the other side of the quinjet.

"Forgive me, Captain, but I feel as though I should say this," Thor said as Steve watched the sky float past them through the small window above him.

"Speak freely," he replied, trying to give the demigod a smile, but he couldn't find it in him to lift his cheeks.

"Brother Banner would not want you to blame yourself, though I know how little comfort my words can bring. I would simply like to say that he would be proud of you, and thankful that you will uphold his legacy in such a manner. He was a man of morals, like yourself. Please, never doubt his love for you."

"Thank you, Thor. That… means a lot, really. I'm trying. I really am. He was a good man, but more than that, he was family. So it's hard, a lot harder than I thought it'd be," Steve sighed, energy suddenly depleted. He let himself collapse back onto the bench behind him, grateful for the support.

"Yeah, yeah he was. Family. I guess that's what we all are now," Tony added, crossing the hull to sit beside Steve on the bench. His warmth was a welcome weight to the Captain's side, and he leaned into it subtly.

"Yeah, I guess so," he echoed with a gentle, slightly-huffed laugh.

A smile finally broke past his grief when Tony snaked a hand across his shoulder and pulled him into an awkward, completely-Tony-Stark sidehug. For once, the knot in the pit of his stomach loosened, and he left himself breathe.


	10. Chapter 10

"Steve, I know what we need to do!"

Tony Stark's sudden spark of charisma and excitement pulled Steve from his semi-conscious state. The billionaire spoke with more enthusiasm than he had since…. No, he didn't want to go there. There had to be at least one moment when the physicist wasn't on their minds. How else would they move on?

"Do for what?" he asked, voice groggy. Somewhere along the line, Tony had taken to calling him by his first name instead of "Cap", and Steve would be lying if he said he didn't enjoy the familiarity.

"To get Bruce back. We've been going about this all wrong, we need more people and more eyes," the inventor replied animatedly. He was writing down something vigorously on his Starkphone, fingers zipping over the screen like fruit flies on a bug zapper. Each tap seemed to energize him more than the last.

"What are you talking about?" Steve prompted, readying himself for the monologue that was sure to follow. Despite his exasperated tone, the soldier was enjoying this now rare side of Tony. It almost felt like he was seeing a glimpse of who he had been before, which was strange, since they had just spent thirty-two hours combing different bases in the Great Basin Desert (which, as it turns out, was one of the biggest in the country) for absolutely zero leads. Everyone else had crashed, almost literally for Clint and Thor, who were sprawled out over a few seats in the back of the jet. But of course, that would be the time Tony Stark chose to shine, when everyone else was starting to dim.

"We need to get more people, everyone possible, looking for suspicious activity. Knowing SHIELD, they are working through a military cover, if they have one at all. This nation is full of hackers and people that want to pretend to be spies, we can have eyes everywhere. Jarvis can help compile the data into locations for us to check out."

"It'll be more than we have now," Natasha called from her place in the cockpit.

"Wait, just wait. Are you forgetting the fact that this information is classified?" Steve interceded, hoping he didn't quell Tony's newfound enthusiasm.

"Well, yeah, but just hear me out," the billionaire replied nonchalantly, "What if it _wasn't_?"

* * *

No more than two hours later, Steve found himself standing in front of a myriad of media personnel listening to Tony Stark do what he did best.

"Bruce Banner is dead," the billionaire began. Immediately, the room burst into action. Reporters were on their feet, shouting questions, cameras flashing and microphones buzzing in anticipation.

"Please, we will take questions later if we have time. But for now, let me explain the situation to you," Tony interjected when he could get a word in. It took a few moments, but finally, the hustle died down to just a camera flash every few seconds.

"Bruce Banner was taken by the US Army four months ago, in an attack lead by General Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross. The man came into my home- our, home, and talked Bruce into surrendering. While at the hands of Ross, hideous, indescribable things were done to Banner, things I wish I could unsee…."

Tony paused dramatically, voice catching. Steve wasn't sure if it was a facade for the crowd, or if the engineer was truly emotional. Whatever it was, he seemed unable to continue. But before the Captain could step in, Clint was leaning into the microphone, putting a supportive hand on Tony's shoulder as if he gave comforting gestures all the time. No one in the crowd would know how rare that was.

"Bruce Banner was tortured, vivisected, treated with less respect than a lab animal, and finally thrown away like garbage when his body couldn't handle the stress anymore. We recovered his body a little more than a month ago, only to once again have him stolen from us. But this time, it was someone we thought was an ally."

The archer stepped back from the microphone, apparently rethinking whatever he had been about to say. It was Steve's turn now, as Natasha was eyeing him expectantly, and Thor was elsewhere, so he couldn't be tried for revealing state secrets and risk bringing mortal affairs to the attention of Asgard.

"America, we need your help. We have reason to believe Banner's corpse is being held in an underground base somewhere within our borders, probably with a military cover story. We haven't been able to find him as of yet, and every day we don't have him is another day someone is using his corpse to create dangerous weapons, weapons no man should have the power to wield."

Public speaking was something he had been trained for, but that didn't mean he enjoyed it. The pressure of thousands of eyes upon him, narrowed down to the scope of a single camera lens, always made him feel uneasy. And this subject matter was far from a light discussion. By doing this, they had basically signed and dated their declaration of war with SHIELD, even if the organization technically no longer existed. From here on out, they were on their own.

"We'll take your questions now," Tony prompted, heralding another eruption from the press.

"Why was the American public not made aware of this when it first happened? Why hide it?" one of the journalists called out.

"It was necessary, the public was convinced Banner was a danger, and we didn't want to create a witch hunt if he did manage to escape," Natasha answered cooly, a single eyebrow quirked as if the answer was common sense.

"What exactly are you asking the viewers to do?" another reporter prompted.

Steve tried to pay attention to the answer, but a movement in the back of the room caught his eye. A man in a black suit was mumbling to himself, even as he turned to leave the room, obviously listening to someone on the ear piece he was wearing. Without a doubt, it was someone from SHIELD. Anticipation and dread coiled in his abdomen, but there was no point. After this, there was no turning back, even if he had wanted to. 

* * *

Bruce didn't know how long it had been when they finally snapped the lights back on. The only thing he was aware of for a few stinging moments was the completely agony in his head, and the knowledge that no matter how hard he clenched his eyes shut, the light would still pour through like molten lava.

But that sensation was nothing in comparison to the sudden blast of ice cold water that drenched him in a sopping cloak of pain. It wasn't a long stream, just barely enough to soak him through, yet it still left him shivering uncontrollably.  
He was dropped to the ground without circumstance, left huddled in a pathetic ball in the middle of a puddle on the cold floor. He could almost hear his father's laugh.  
Slowly, ever so slowly, his senses trickled back to him. The pain in his head faded to a sharp throb, and he was able to open his eyes just enough to see some of the room past his tears. The ringing in his ears was still a troubling presence, but Bruce realized he could actually hear something underneath it, like a minor note in a chord. He couldn't make out the words, but he knew that voice. He _knew_ it. And it was saying his name. The sound was so comforting, he couldn't help but turn his head towards it.

And there, right in front of him, was Tony Stark.


	11. Chapter 11

"Bruce Banner is dead," Tony said. Well, the image of Tony. There on the concrete wall, close enough to touch, Tony Stark was saying his name. On the bottom of the screen, a text roll announced "Monster dead! Avengers report on matter."

"It had to be done, Bruce was a danger," Natasha was saying, and a moment later, Clint was on the screen.

"Bruce Banner was an animal," the archer growled, anger evident in his every movement.

"We couldn't risk a hunt if he escaped," Natasha added.

And just like that, the screen flickered away and he was left in the darkness once more, cold seeping into his soul and clenching around his heart. Even when his father used to give him ice baths, he couldn't remember ever being this cold. Feeling this alone.

 _It had to be done._

Just like that. The sentiments a dog gets when it is put down for attacking someone.

And no one said Hulk. It wasn't the Hulk, wasn't the physical _monster_ that everyone was scared of. The Avengers betrayed him because they had seen the animal, _the monster_ , inside his head. His greatest secret. It wasn't Hulk who was dangerous, and now they knew that as well as him.

The only problem was the fact that he wasn't dead. So, either they were lying to the public and had sent him here to be tested on. Or, someone had lied to them.

And somehow, no matter how much he was hurt by them, he knew they would never sentence him to the life of a lab rat. Not Tony. Certainly not Cap. And _definitely_ not Natasha. Barton and Thor probably wouldn't have cared either way, as long as the threat was taken care of.

No, that wasn't fair. He may not have been very close to Clint, but he knew the man was a good one. And Thor was the very definition of the word compassion, at least to his friends.

Was Bruce still a friend?

No. Either way, they wanted him dead. Still wanted him dead. If he escaped, he'd go back to being a hunted animal. An animal pursued by the very people he had once trusted to protect him.

So, what was the point of escaping? Either they knew he was here and would capture him and ship him back, or they would find out once someone reported a Hulk sighting and they realized he wasn't dead. Then, they would hunt him down. And kill him.

Or….. The video was a fake. But the emotions, the speech inflections, even the expressions had been so… them. So regretful, so hollow. Having to kill their teammate had obviously done a number on them. But now, the question was, what had he done?

He didn't remember much of the Hulk's memories, but he recalled enough to know there hadn't been an incident since before he was captured by Ross.

So, what was he missing? The Avengers wouldn't just take him being dead on a word, they would have done it themselves or seen it done. Or, if the tape was doctored in some way, they would have wanted to see the body.

Without warning, his thoughts were cut by another screech emitting from his collar. Not the one that had impaired his hearing, but a fast, high beep that sounded like some sort of alarm. A sharp prick in the neck followed, and all he could feel were the words echoing painfully in his head, almost drowned out by the ringing.

 _Bruce Banner was an animal. A danger._

Somewhere, deep in his mind, a familiar presence growled. It soothed away the fear and replaced it with a cold apathy. Bruce couldn't feel Hulk, but he was there, lost in the abyss. He wasn't completely helpless, but he was alone. So utterly, unbelievably alone.

* * *

Bruce didn't know how long had passed since the room flickered back to darkness. He'd already gone around it several times, feeling the walls and the floor. Concrete, all of it. Better than metal, in way, he supposed. One door, heavily reinforced, hinges on the outside, with barely a seam he could feel. There were also several sturdy rings embedded into the wall, seemingly about every ten feet. Anchor points, for when they decided he needed to be restrained, probably. But in concrete? Either they were stupid, didn't think the Hulk would be a problem, or the rings were attached to a stronger metal beneath the concrete.

Still, anything was a welcome change to metal cells where he was strapped down to a bed constantly. The weakness was starting to get to him. He was severely dehydrated, and after months of limited movement and then days of dangling from a ceiling, he could barely walk  
the length of one wall before he had to sag against it. A part of him hoped they would keep him in this room for longer. As long as he could walk and move freely, he could withstand the pain, thirst, and darkness.

But as if to spite him, after only a few more hours, the lights clicked on again, swarming him with pinpricks of heat. It felt like someone had lit a flare on his skin, and then had smashed the flame into his eyes. He leaned against the corner he was in, huddling into a small ball. Over the pain and constant noise in his ears, he didn't hear the sound of a door opening, or footsteps approaching him. Not until a hand on his shoulder tugged him harshly forward, bringing him to his hands and knees on the hard floor.

"Robert, I trust you have had some time to think, correct?"

Of course, it was Blondie, Bruce knew that voice by heart now. He almost laughed at the "Robert". So, they'd gotten access to his SHIELD files somehow (not all that surprising, since he was 99% sure they _were_ SHIELD. But still, the ploy might have worked on a first year psychology student, but not him. They wouldn't incite obedience by using the name only his father called him. Not to say that the name didn't almost draw a shudder from him, but it wasn't going to have the effect they wanted. Abercrombie didn't seem to notice, though. Instead, he put a single finger under Bruce's chin and lifted his head up to meet his gaze, almost affectionately. Now, he really did shudder.

His captor's eyes shone with malice, all semblance of the well-mannered man gone the day Bruce called his bluff in the labs. Bruce could tell he was still angry about having his sadistic side revealed, but the physicist didn't really care. At least now he could see the man's true intentions. And if SHIELD would put someone like this in charge of him, would condone this torture, he definitely didn't trust them to use any weapons he developed for anything good, and certainly didn't trust them not to use them against the Avengers, should they be able to tweak them.

"Yes, I've had time to think," Bruce managed to growl. His throat felt raw, and he couldn't hear his own words, but he felt his muscles move and sound vibrate out of his mouth. By the look on Abercrombie's face, he got his point across.

"Here is how it's going to be, since we can't play nice. One, you will speak only when spoken to. Two, you will kneel every time someone enters a room with you in it, as I will not have my employees scared you're about to attack them. On your knees, hands behind your back, eyes on the floor. Understood?"

This time, Bruce couldn't hold in his laugh. The man wanted him to kneel, it was almost as hysterical as a comic book villain. At least Loki had been blessed with the threat of authority. This man just had a god complex. Even Ross hadn't gone this far, and the General had been off his rocker for years.

He was prepared for the blow when it came, but it still hurt. Even with the smile smacked off of his face, Bruce couldn't quite rein himself in long enough not to sneer.

"Want me to call you 'Master' too?"

Abercrombie grabbed him by the throat, throwing him to his knees in the process, looming over Bruce and trying to look like a force to be reckoned with.

"No wonder Rogers was so happy to be rid of you. And here I thought he was crazy, having the world's most powerful creature living with you like a house pet, one part a brilliant scientist, the other part brute strength, it would be a dream for any man. But he threw you away without a second look, and now I know why. Despite your 'immeasurable IQ', no matter how much strength your attack dog has, you're too much of a monster to be reasoned with. Too inhuman to predict, to trust," the man huffed, sounding put out. Bruce tried to tune him out, but he couldn't. He was so desperate to hear about his team, about the family he missed. Even if they had betrayed him, he couldn't bring himself not to care. He was fairly sure every word out of his captor's mouth was a lie, but even lies held some semblance of truth.

"Aww, don't want to believe me? You really should. I saved your life, you know. They wanted to be rid of you, even the redhead. She warned me that you were too powerful to control, too dangerous to let live. I argued that we could appeal to your sense of humanity, if you had one. And if that didn't work, we could appeal to your sense of self-preservation. I see that even that has failed, though."

"No matter what you do to me, I won't cooperate. I know what kind of man you are," Bruce spat, working his muscles against the fingers crushing his esophagus.

His captor tightened his hold around Bruce's throat, cutting off the oxygen supply, narrowing the physicist's world to a single focal point, head pounding and fingers weakly grazing the thick-muscled arm that gripped him.

"I know, that. Too bad, it would have been a treat to work with the _great_ Dr. Banner. But, oh well, you are useful in other ways. And fortunately, we don't need your cooperation, just your body," Abercrombie purred, enjoying the blue that was beginning to colour Bruce's lips.

"Give up, Robert. Your friends hate you, your country hates you, and everyone who once cared about you is dead. Because of you."

Bruce could no longer tune him out; instead, he focused on the words. Trying to have it spur his anger, fuel his hate and trigger an adrenaline rush that might allow him to escape. But nothing came, no supportive growl from the darkness of his mind, no surging in his blood, not even a will to fight back. Blackness crept along the edges of his vision.

Just before he faded out, he heard the speaker one last time.

"No one is coming for you, and no one is going to save you. This is your life now. Accept it."

Somewhere, in a part of his brain that wasn't capable of rational thought, a neuron fired, and triggered a single memory. A phrase, said in the voice of the person he trusted most in this world.

 _It had to be done._


	12. Chapter 12

Tony was on Bruce's floor. Tony was on _Bruce's_ floor.

Steve didn't know what to feel at the moment. It had been almost an unspoken agreement that none of them went onto Banner's floor. Every time they passed it on the elevator, they had an involuntary moment of silence. And now, for whatever reason, Tony had invaded that space.

He found the billionaire standing in the middle of Bruce's living room, looking down at the open book lying face down on his coffee table, cover outlined in dust. Franz Kafka's _Metamorphosis_ , one of Bruce's favorite books for light reading. Next to it was an empty mug with a few loose tea leaves still stuck to the bottom.

The five month anniversary of the scientist's death was next week, yet his apartment still looked like he had just left that morning, were it not for the dust. As Steve surveyed the room, it was hard not to feel their loss like a kick in the gut. Bruce should have been there, sleeping off a transformation on the couch while one of them made him some food, or taking a shower in the bedroom, or in the kitchen making tea.

Instead, he was gone. Steve didn't know whether he believed in Heaven anymore, but he liked to think Bruce was looking down on them, watching over them. Perhaps the scientist was sad for their sorrow, or maybe he was happy he hadn't been forgotten. Wherever he was, Steve hoped he was free from the sorrow that had plagued him while he was alive.

And suddenly, Steve knew why Tony was in here. The room was… Bruce. Everything from the potted plants in the corner with an automated sprinkler system Bruce himself whipped up, to the muted decor, to the pictures sitting on the mantel above the fireplace. Steve slipped past Tony, who didn't make a move to look up, and went to survey the photographs. One was of a young woman with pretty eyes and dark brown hair, straight as a pin. She was smiling gorgeously at the camera, a blush crawling across her features. Steve had only seen the woman, once, at the funeral. But Betty looked completely different in this photo. The air of burden and hardship had hung on her like a tattered cloak. In this photo, she was a younger, more carefree version of herself. The woman Bruce Banner had fallen for, once upon a time.

The next photo was grainier, a photo clearly taken in the earlier part of the seventies, from what he knew of the history of photography. Pictured were a woman and a small boy he recognized immediately, a wry smile peeking out from underneath a mess of curls. How that smile hadn't changed in nearly forty years, Steve wasn't sure, but the kid was wearing the same loose clothing, long sleeved shirts despite the background being what looked like a desert, and a pair of khakis that flooded around his ankles. Behind him, with her hands on his shoulders, stood a woman with hair only a few shades lighter than Bruce's, a proud smile flitting across her bright features. Both mother and son had an old feeling about them, not like the innocent, gleeful expressions that Steve and his mother had often seen reflected back from them in mirrors. Still, there was a tenderness in the gentle grip on the boy's shoulder, and in the way he pressed back into her legs. Everyone on the team had learned of Bruce's childhood when they'd finally managed to get him to say why he didn't drink, but to see it reflected back so clearly, it almost hurt. The little boy's touch on his mother's hand was searching, her and him against the world. A bond forged not out of parental love, but out of desperation and necessity. They became close because otherwise they would have been alone.

The third photo wasn't really a photo. It was a signed propaganda pamphlet, with nothing other than a portrait of Captain America with his shield. The paper was wrinkled and faded with age, but even still, Steve could see the sloppy scrawl of his own signature. The one from his early years, when he was a newly painted hero.

 _To Brian, you'll always be a hero in my books. -Steve Rogers._ _  
_ _  
_Steve looked back at the picture, his breath catching in his throat. He could almost see a child Brian Banner, a boy barely five years old, arms peppered with bruises of varying ages, and sporting a black eye.

"

 _I wish I was super strong, too," the boy mumbled forlornly. Steve just smiled and took the photo he offered before looking back to the boy. Before he could ask his name, he caught sight of the shiner the kid was trying to hid behind a baseball cap._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Why is that, buddy?" he found himself asking. The boy looked up at him with something akin to wonder, a look that still unsettled him. Not more than fifteen years ago, he was scrawnier than even this kid. Now, he was a hero. Captain America. It said so right on the paper the boy had handed him._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Because then I could get my dad to leave us alone."_ _  
_ _  
_ _Steve looked up in curiosity at the us, and saw the boy glance back to his family, a mother with a long rose-colored dress and a cross around her neck, standing behind one little girl, with a younger infant wrapped in a pink blanket nestled in her arms. Both the woman and the little girl, who couldn't have been older than three, bore the same fist-sized bruises that decorated the arms of the boy before him._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Brian, don't. I'm sure Captain America has better places to be. Just ask him to sign, honey. We need to go," the woman reprimanded sternly, shifting her daughter a little closer to her body._ _  
_ _  
_ _"It's no problem, ma'am. I always have time for a fan," Steve responded for the boy, earning a smile from his mother._ _  
_ _  
_ _"So, your name is Brian, then?"_ _  
_ _  
_ _At the sound of his name, the little boy beamed up at him, a smile cracking across his face that revealed two missing teeth and adorable dimples. Quickly, Steve wrote a message across the paper, then handed it back to Brian with a smile of his own._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Strength doesn't account for everything, kiddo. You need to have courage, and always use your head. You think you can do that for me? For your mom and sisters?"_ _  
_ _  
_ _"Sir, yes, sir!" The boy replied back, waving him a sloppy salute, lop-sided grin growing even fuller as he caught sight of the words on the paper. He probably couldn't read them all yet, but he at least recognized his name._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Good, soldier. Now run back to your mother, and make sure to tell her that you love her, alright?"_ _  
_ _  
_ _The woman shot him a smile so grateful, so full of warmth and kindness, that Steve couldn't help but think of his own mother._ _  
_ _  
_ _Instead of running off like he expected, Brian suddenly folded himself around the Captain's legs, hugging him tightly and grinning up at him._ _  
_ _  
_ _"Thank you!"_ _  
_ _  
_ _With that, the boy hightailed it back to his mother, who greeted him with a hug and a soft smirk as her son rambled on. Steve could still hear the boy talking even as the next person in line came up to hand him a paper to autograph._ _  
_ _  
_ _"You're very welcome, Brian," he whispered before turning his Captain America smile back to the crowd pressing towards him._ _  
_

Somehow, that little boy had turned into the monster of Bruce's nightmares. Steve couldn't help but wonder at what point Brian had given up on being a hero, had turned his back on his family so he wouldn't see his father reflected back in their eyes. At what point did a son stop fearing he would end up like his dad.

And suddenly, all he could think of was Tony. Everything he had heard about Howard and Maria, and the neglect their son had faced. How long had it taken Tony Stark to crawl out of his own father's shadow.

As if he had heard his thoughts, Steve heard a stifled sob escape from the man standing behind him. Within moments, he found himself standing in front of Tony. For a span of time, all he could register was the watery chestnut of Tony's rheumy eyes, and the way the man's breath ghosted across Steve's lips. His own breath shortened out into a puff, the two men standing less than an arm's length away, both too terrified and angry at the other to make a move.

With a courage he didn't know he possessed, Steve found his hands brushing across Tony's cheeks, cupping his stubbly jaw within their grasp. A single tear fell onto his thumb, and he brushed it away without bothering to look away from the other man's gaze. For once, Tony didn't look indignant or offended, and he had yet to make a snarky remark and pull away. Instead, the inventor leaned into his touch, mask crumbling away in a rare, tender moment of transparency, eyes sliding closed.

"Steve," the billionaire gasped, a single moment before being overcome by violent sobs. Each shuffled breath from Tony caused Steve's heart to clench that much more. He knew. Of course he knew. Fuck, the evidence was right there in that tea mug covered with dust. Every sob echoed his own despair, his own guilt. Bruce wasn't coming back. This…. This room would forever be empty. A tomb in the middle of Stark Tower. And it didn't matter what anyone said, he knew it was his fault.

Their fault.

No matter how much he tried to deny it to himself, Steve knew there was no use. He blamed them, just like deep down, they all blamed him. It was reflected in the way they spoke to each other now, the silence of their team meetings, the eyes that stared blankly back at him in the morning.

And it was that burden of guilt that kept them at each other's throats. The Avengers could do anything…. Besides protect one of their own, apparently. A man they had all looked in the eye and promised - _swore-_ they would defend with their very lives. A man they had told not to worry, that they would take care of his problem for him, that monster named Ross. Because that's what the Avengers _do_ ; they take care of monsters.

But how do you defeat a monster in your own head? Because Tony's -because _Steve's_ \- grief was such a monstrous, menacing snake coiled around their hearts.

As gently as he could, Steve turned Tony's face up towards his own. This was the face of a man that he heated, the face that always reminded him even more painfully of what they'd lost. But… this was also the face of his brother-in-arms, a man he trusted to protect him when his back was turned. The face of a man he desperately wanted to smile again. This was Tony Stark, and if he could look at Steve without seeing only Bruce, then damn it, Steve owed it to him to at least try and do the same.

"Steve… _fuck_ … We…"

Tony didn't seem to be able to put his thoughts to words. His every breath was wracked with feeling.

"Language," the Captain chided, earning himself a slightly audible puff of laughter. But when Tony's eyes met his own, there was no mirth. Just a lost soul, hopelessly searching for….

"I know," Steve breathed.

Tony's eyes widened, and he locked his hands onto Steve's shoulders like iron clamps, eyes searching the soldier's for everything he was afraid to say.

"I know," Steve confirmed, more firmly this time. And had he been watching a movie, he would have seen it coming a mile away.

But all coherent thought left him as Tony's lips crashed onto his own. There was nothing sweet or gentle about this kiss. This was the desperate, pleading kiss of a dying man. And they were both drowning, right there in the middle of Bruce's tomb, pressing into each other's bodies in a pitiful attempt at comfort, at solidarity. But there, under the clouded mask of grief in Tony's trembling fingers, was a spark of hope,. The drowning man's last call for help, bubbling up through his final breath to break through to the surface, moments before the darkness closed around him.

And fuck, Steve was far from a good swimmer, not in these waters. But he would not lose another soldier.

Another friend.

And that's when he saw the gun, fallen to the floor at Tony's feet, gleaming in the last light of the setting sun.

All he could see was Bruce. Cornered, surrounded, strangers staring them down as he looked at them and smiled.

 _I got low._

With a growl, Steve kicked the gun away, not even bothering to disconnect himself from Tony. He clung to the man for all he was worth. And though it must have hurt, all Tony did was suck in another sob through Steve's lips.

 _I put a bullet in my mouth._

A drowning man. But Tony wasn't shaking anymore. He was breathing. A harsh, ragged breath between hesitant sobs, but breathing.

Had Steve not stepped onto this floor, not braved these waters, Tony would not be. He'd be another bloodstain on the floor, another notch on the memorial wall, another flame squelched.

"Tony," Steve moaned into the man's mouth. And it was enough. Tony's eyes shot open, the heroes parted, and Tony fell into Steve's arms, his entire weight supported by the soldier. The Captain collapsed with him, sagging to the floor as his own tears found him. There they sat, sobbing, kissing between bouts of tears, undressing each other with the fuel of desperation that Steve had never felt before.

He didn't remember how long they sat there, clinging to each other, sobs broken by stolen kisses as they explored each other's bodies; treading water.

But when Steve woke up next to Tony the next day, devoid of clothing and feeling like a sheet that had been put through the wringer, all he could think was that Tony's eyes were brighter, less red than usual.

If anything, he appeared… calm. Peaceful in a dreamless sleep. The eye of the storm. A temporary reprieve, but enough. It was enough.

* * *

Bruce groaned as consciousness flooded back into him. Even without moving, he could feel the stitches in his chest. Tight, neat little rows done as though he hadn't been thrashing when they were administered.

The cell was dark, they never left the lights on when he was alone. A sharp, bone-aching dizziness bit him when he sat up, squinting his eyes in the blackness.

There was no bed. He'd curled up in a corner, blocked out at some point the day before. If it had been a full day since his last session.

Last time, the blonde scientist had told him he'd been out for seven days. But Bruce had nothing to validate nor deny that claim. Not that it would change anything. Whether he slept for an hour or a year, he'd still wake up here until the day he managed to get his collar off.

The lights cut on, slashing through his pupils as painfully as always. He didn't even fight the urge to drop to his knees, anymore. When he listened, when he kneeled and did as he was told like a good mutt, he got rewards.

They came like they always did now. No masks, no words, no apologies, no commands. Just hauled him up like a slab of meat and dragged him to the small bathroom down the hall. It was another privilege, running water. A shower, sometimes.

The water was cold, but he let it run over him until it ran off clear. The water around his feet pooled in a muddy brown, the bloodstained liquid streaming off of him in banners of muck.

He could have told them that stitches weren't support to get wet, had they asked. But, he didn't. He had them everywhere. There wasn't a part of him that hadn't been cut open.

"To see what makes you tick," Blondie had said, once, back when anyone still talked to him. But the smile on his face whenever he watched Bruce scream through the operating window was anything but an expression of scientific enthusiasm. It was sadistic, maleficent pleasure. The picture of power and hunger. Sometimes, Bruce wondered if they were even running any tests at all.

After his shower, they bent his naked form over the sink and shaved him. Head, peach fuzz, sideburns- it all went down the drain until his skin was raw and bare. Whatever effect they had intended, it worked. He felt more naked than he had even before. For a moment, he almost regretted washing away his layer of grime. It had been something between his skin and the bare, cold air, at least.

But when he was thrown back into his cell, he couldn't find it in him to care anymore. Hair would grow back. His wounds would heal. The tongue he had bit through while screaming would grow back. He would talk again. He would hear without the ringing in his ears again. And he would make sure no one ever laid a hand on him again.

Somewhere, deep in his mind, a familiar growl rumbled his affirmation. And despite the collar, for a moment, Bruce felt that warmth flooding his veins. Hulk agreed with him, this time. They would end this once and for all.

It wasn't much. All too soon, the power faded back into his subconsciousness, and he was left alone in the dark. But it was enough. It was enough.


	13. Chapter 13

She wasn't sure how she found her, but Wanda had a knack for sniffing these things out.

"Are you alright?" The lightly accented voice snapped Natasha out of her thoughts. She was still sitting on the floor, where she had fallen after throwing her last knife into the target across the room. It was hard to see from four hundred yards away, but she thought it was a bullseye.

"I suppose that is a stupid question. You are not alright. I can feel it. Your… sorrow."

"It doesn't matter," Natasha responded dryly, voice clipped.

"It's that man, still. Isn't it? That.. Banner. The one who died. You loved him," Wanda responds, either not listening or not hearing the other woman. Her face was tilted at an odd angle, like a speculative dog. It was an expression she wore often when trying to decipher someone else's thoughts.

"Leave it alone. You have no idea what you're talking about," Natasha warned, rolling onto her feet and rising to her full height, towering over the girl. Wanda simply smirked, not one to be cowed.

"Mmmmm. Yes, you are right. Truly, I have no experience with the loss of someone I love. How could I understand. I'm too young for such adult matters," the young woman replied, voice deliberately even.

"Is that what they told you too, in that place with the blood? That you were too young to understand?" Wanda added, a knowing smile flitting across her features.

Well…. Touche.

"I'm sorry. I forgot, for a minute, about your brother," Natasha offered, forcing herself to relax her muscles and ditch her defensive posture. Not that it could fool a mind-reader, but it helped her feel more in control. At the mention of Pietro, the smile faded from the girl's face.

"Some days, I wish I could do the same," she admitted softly, looking more like the teenager she was.

"It gets easier with time," Nat found herself saying.

"Has it for you?" Wanda asked, as if she didn't already know the answer. As if she was hoping Natasha would- could- lie to her.

But for once, Black Widow found herself speechless.

"The day that we met, the day we fought, I… triggered a vision in him. Would it help, if I told you what it was?"

Nat looked at her for a moment, trying to take in the young woman's playing field. But this wasn't a game, and Wanda was a friend. Creepy powers or not, she just wanted to help.

But would it help?

"I think it would, if you knew," Wanda slipped in.

"Stop that," Natasha snapped, eyes sharp. The smirk popped back onto the teen's face. It was her defense mechanism. Sometimes, Nat wondered if she knew how much like Bruce she was. The two hadn't been on very good terms when Banner was taken. But, then again, the man had good reason. It was partially the little witch's fault the army had been able to get a warrant.

"I can't, you already know this. And I have already apologized for my part played in this….mess. Please, allow me to make it up to you."

What else could she do? Nat nodded, and felt Wanda place a gentle finger to her temple. She could initiate visions without contact, but it certainly made it easier for her.

Inside her mind, Natasha found herself an unwilling audience to one of Bruce's most horrific memories. Of course, he had told her about it. The murder of his mother. But it was something else altogether to see it from Bruce's eyes.  
Bruce, child Bruce, closed his eyes when his mother's head cracked onto the pavement. But when he opened them, it wasn't his father standing over the corpse on the ground, and it wasn't his mother in the pool of blood.

Instead, before her stood Bruce in his tattered post-transformation pants, exhaustion written across his every feature until he looked down. Immediately, the man collapsed. There on the ground was Natasha, her red hair a sickly brown, stuck to her forehead with dried blood.

"No! Tasha…." Bruce gasped. And even though it was an expression of horror, of guilt, of agony, Natasha's breath still came rushing out. After five months, she had almost forgotten what Bruce's voice sounded like when he said her name.

All too soon, he faded away, and she stood in the gym again, Wanda a few feet away.

"It was what he feared most. Turning into that man. Hurting you. I believe he loved you. He would… want you to be happy, I think."

Wordlessly, Natasha wrapped her arms around the thin teen's shoulders, pulling her into a hug in their first gesture of affection. Wanda tensed only momentarily, then let herself relax. She didn't sink into the embrace or give any hint that she enjoyed it, but Nat didn't really get the feeling that she wasn't enjoying it either.

"Thank you," Natasha whispered in the woman's ear. Out of everything, just seeing Bruce had been the most painful. And learning that what the man had been most afraid of was losing her. Well, that was a sentiment she had shared.

"You are welcome. It is…. You are right, it was partially my fault. If I can help in any way, I should. It is what Pietro always said. I should do what I can to make things right. I only wish I had been able to do so with Banner, before he was stolen," Wanda murmured, her voice maybe even a little shaky.

And Nat wanted so badly to reassure her, to tell her it wasn't her fault, give her that peace. To stop her from turning into another Bruce. But if she couldn't lie to herself, she definitely couldn't lie to the the Scarlet Witch.

"I wish I had done a lot of things, to be honest, but all we can do from here is move forward." Natasha almost laughed, she had never thought she would be quoting Captain America. The line seemed to work on Wanda, at least. She nodded, then trotted back to her side of the gym to start taking out training dummies again.

And even though Natasha's heart hurt, even though she still blamed herself, and Wanda, and the rest of the team for Bruce's death, she was for once grateful that the teen was able to read minds. Sometimes, it was easier not to talk.

Throwing a smile in the young woman's direction, knowing she would feel it, Natasha went back to throwing her blades.

She wouldn't be okay for a long time, maybe never again, but at least she could still hear her name in Bruce's mouth again. She hoped she wouldn't forget his voice for a long time to come, but like she had told him once, the dead are dead.

Still, she had never hoped to understand what he'd meant when he said, "Not to me. Never. Never."

But it was far, far too late for regrets. Besides, they weren't really her style.


	14. Chapter 14

Scott Kester was going to lose it. If Fury sent one more report inquiring to the test subject's welfare, he was going to lose it. There were only so many times he could lie and expect the director to believe him.

It was so hypocritical of the man, to expect actual results without exposing the beast to any "unnecessary harm." No one could hope to control a mindless animal unless it had something to fear. Rewards and punishments. Pros and cons to cooperating. One always had to walk a fine line between them to command real obedience. His test subject had been thoroughly broken, something no one had been able to do before. And Fury was concerned about how much the monster was _suffering_?

Scott had never really been valued for his accomplishments, but to have them completely overlooked was another offense all together. He might as well scrap the entire project, take his weapon and go rogue. Dr. Kester controlled _the_ Bruce Banner. Someone might as well pay him a little respect, now that he'd put all this hard work into taming the world's most powerful force. Billions of people were safe once more, because of him. And yet, he still had to fake experiment reports to make a useless superior think they were actually making progress.

In a way, they were. Scott now had the most powerful gamma weapon on a leash, which was what everyone had originally wanted. Banner was now partially deaf, mute, and completely malleable. This part was where the real fun started, where he created the conditioning to turn the monster into a super soldier. With the Hulk at their defense, Earth would never need to rely on a bunch of childish, quarelling "superheroes" to protect itself.

But in order to do that, they had to start with Banner. And if the man would just _stop_ his pointless acts of immature defiance, they would be that much closer. Of course, an easy test subject is no fun at all. So, perhaps it was best that sometimes the doctor refused to listen to an order, or beat at his door at night. Still, the sooner he had his final product, the better.

* * *

Clint stared at the target before him. He wasn't practicing, not really. At barely one hundred yards out and facing down an unmoving target, he was just wasting time. But the simple, smooth movements of drawing and releasing were soothing to him. Even more soothing were the holes punctured over Ross' picture that had been plastered onto the dummy. If only they had one of those fancy targets that actually bled when hit, he would be content. Still, this was good, too.

He was just about to loose another arrow before he heard someone storm into the gymnasium. It wasn't all that uncommon for people to come through here, but he knew the only person who could stomp that loudly was someone you _really_ didn't want to see angry. Probably the last person in the world you wanted angry.

Well, besides for one other.

 _Don't go there._ _  
_ _  
_"Thor, everything alright?" Clint called, looking over his shoulder as he released the arrow. He didn't need to look to know it was a bullseye. Or, should he say "Ross'"-eye.

"Nay, t'is not. I have attempted to seek counsel your Director of Fury, and was told he refused to hear me. We are no closer to finding Banner, and I am out of ideas," Thor snapped, beginning to pace restlessly, his cloak billowing out behind him.

"Fury refused to see you?" Clint asked, lowering his bow and turning to face the thunderer directly. The demigod stopped his pacing only long enough to shoot the archer a discontented look.

"Yes, did I not just say this?"

Had he been another person, Clint might have laughed at the prince's expression. It was exactly the look Nathaniel got when he was told no to a second cookie.

"Why do you want to talk to Fury?" he questioned instead.

"To attempt to reason with him, of course, why else would I wish to contaminate myself with such a presence?" Thor demanded, ceasing his pacing and coming to rest discontentedly in front of Clint.

"There is no reasoning with Fury, Thor. Once he has his mind set to something, no one can change it."

"Do you not wish to locate Banner, friend?"

Instead of answering, Clint scowled. His expression may have been enough of a response, for Thor smiled menacingly.

"Then why should we not convince this man to reveal our friend's location, in whatever manner the situation necessitates? Why should we continue this charade of cooperation?"

This time, it was Clint's turn to smile.

"Now you're talkin' my language. I'm in. When do we leave?" the archer asked, stowing his bow back onto his shoulder.

The thunderer's voice was murderously quiet when he snarled.

"Now."

* * *

Fury was at his wit's end. He wasn't an idiot. He knew, of all people, that they were playing with borrowed time. It was them against Tony Stark's hacking skills. No matter how many reports he purposefully kept out of the system, some things _had_ to be automated. Stark would come for him when he found out, they all would. He was expecting that, prepared for it.

What he hadn't been expecting was for Agent Hill to launch the door open without so much as a knock and show two Avengers into the room.

"Hill, what's the meaning of this?" Fury demanded, voice tight. He did _not_ have time for this. Not now.

"Is it true that you are keeping Banner's body for experimentation?" Hill responded, her tone uncharacteristically threatening.

"What does it matter if I was? You and Banner weren't close."

Why did everyone always pick the least opportune time to grow a conscience?

"No, but we were," Clint shot back, fists clenched at his side. He was unarmed, for now.

"Barton, we've been over this. We need weapons, especially now that our biggest gun is gone."

"Banner wasn't a _weapon_ , Director, he was a man. A man who deserves the same rights in death as everyone else," Hill hissed, marching right up to her superior to stare him in the eye.

"Agent, this doesn't concern you. I would appreciate it if you could wait out in the hall while I dealt with this," Fury replied, crossing his arms and shooting his employee a disapproving glare.

"The good agent deserves to know what kind of man she works for," Thor put in, eyes narrowed in disgust. Behind him, Fury heard his computer beep.

Ok, he _really_ didn't have time for this.

"A man who is willing to do whatever it takes to defend his home," Fury offered with a shrug. If he could just hold them off long enough to call security…

Surely the Avengers wouldn't risk hurting a civilian just trying to do his job?

But all rational thought fleed his mind when there was suddenly an arrow two inches from his eye.

"Alright, let's try it this way," Clint growled, "You have to the count of three to tell us where Banner is. But I'd be careful, Director. I never was really good at math."

Surprisingly, it was Hill who started the count.

"One."

"Two." Thor echoed.

Fury waited for his life to flash before his eyes, for his rapidly beating heart to give him enough blood to his brain to come up with an escape plan. But neither happened.

Instead, he just said, "White Sands base, in Otero, New Mexico."

Clint grinned, actually fucking laughed, and lowered his bow.

"There, was that so hard?"

"We thank you for your cooperation, Director," Thor added darkly.

When the Avengers left, Hill went with them. Fury couldn't find it in him to care. She was expendable.

Once he was alone in the room once more, he opened the email on his laptop and replied without reading it. There was only one person it could be from.

 _You have less than twenty-four hours to get results. The Avengers are coming. Do whatever it takes._ _  
_ _  
_

* * *

"Tony! Steve! I'm glad you're here! We have good news," Clint greeted, walking into the communal living room to find Tony and Steve leaning over a laptop sitting on the coffee table. They were seated side by side, hips touching each other in a familiar, intimate position. Had Clint's brain been working correctly the last couple of weeks, he probably would have been more surprised.

"What is it, Clint?" Natasha asked, walking towards them from the kitchen with a cup of coffee in her hand. She sounded better than she had in months, almost like herself again. For a minute, Clint almost laughed at the euphoria he felt being surrounded by his team again. Until his eyes fell on the empty recliner seated across from the couch, and he was sharply reminded that he wasn't surrounded by the _entire_ team. How had he forgotten about Bruce, even momentarily?

"We found his location, Banner's, that is," Hill replied for him as she walked in behind Thor, not even batting an eye at Tony and Steve's newfound intimacy.

"What's she doing here?" Tony asked tightly. Steve looked over his shoulder to survey the crowd, but Clint didn't miss the hand that fell comfortingly to Tony's thigh.

Well, it was about time.

"The agent Hill has switched sides. She wishes to aide us in the recovery of our comrade," Thor answered, looking down at the agent with something akin to gratitude.

"Did you hear what I said? We found him!" Clint repeated, looking dumbfoundedly at his friends. They all looked so much… lighter. Did they even care anymore?

"We heard you. But as much as I hate to say it, we can't go right now. We have a bigger problem," Steve said, shooting Clint an apologetic glance.

"Bigger problem?" Hill echoed, walking up towards the couch to peer at the screen from over Tony's shoulder. The inventor bristled, but didn't turn the laptop away.

"Ross has been busy since we last heard from him," Natasha explained, approaching Clint to hand him a coffee, "There's been a sighting near a base in Florida. Witnesses described a seven foot tall gray monster that attacked a town before being put down by the local military forces. We think it's a gamma experiment."

"Well, at least Ross has learned to clean up his own mess this time," Hill replied dryly, looking back at Clint. And just like at the funeral, every eye was on him this time, waiting for his answer.

And he wanted to tell them to go fuck themselves, that he would get Bruce himself. But he knew what Banner would have wanted, and he knew what he had to do.

 _Sorry, Bruce._

"Alright, when do we leave?"


	15. Chapter 15

Maria had seen the Avengers in action before, in the Chitauri invasion. But this…. This was nothing like that.

The team moved disjointedly, Cap taking the lead, and the others going their own way. Iron Man flew above Cap, and watched his back, but Barton headed for the nearest rooftop and fired explosive arrows into the thrall, narrowly missing his team mates at times. Romanoff disappeared entirely, probably fighting her way into the thick of the thrall. Thor provided support to his team mates as well as he could, but they were too staggered to make it easy for him to cover them all.

They had only been on the military base for a few minutes, attempting to reason with the guard to let them in to see Ross, when all hell broke lose. Grotesque, mutated creatures poured out of the facility. Some looked human still, though didn't respond when ordered to stand down. Others looked like a version of the Hulk dipped in acid, or appeared to come straight out of a horror movie, with extra limbs jutting out of torsos, or foreheads caved in and eyes popping out of sockets. It was disgustingly disturbing. And this was exactly what Banner had feared would happen if the military got a hold of him.

The Avengers were efficient in dispatching the creatures, and it seemed Rogers and Widow were attempting to give them as swift and painless an end as possible. Unspoken was the understanding that these monsters hailed from Banner's DNA. Whenever a shade of green appeared on an experiment that was just a tad too close to that of the Hulk, Maria heard everyone suck in a harsh breath before resuming their fight. The Avengers fought separately, but still grieved collectively.

As the last monster went down, almost two and a half hours after the fight had broken out, Maria heard an exhausted Cap gasp over the speakers, "Good job, everyone. If you're still alive, sound off."

"All clear here," Barton's voice crackled through the headset.

"Still alive….kinda. Anyone know a good chiropractor around here?" Tony put in.

"Aye, that was a glorious battle! Surely we are in cause for celebration, dear friends!"

"Hill? Natasha?" Steve asked.

"I'm fine, Cap, you guys did most of the heavy lifting," Maria replied with a laugh.

"Do not sell yourself short, Agent, your own hand is also bathed in the blood of our enemies!"

"Thanks, Thor," Maria chuckled, catching sight of the alien grinning at her a few hundred yards out.

"Natasha?" Steve repeated.

A few moments of silence went by, and suddenly the entire team seemed on edge again.

"Cap, I just found her mic. It's….. It's got blood on it," Clint informed them, voice quivering.

"Alright, Avengers, pair up and look for Widow. But _be careful._ There might still be something around here. If you find anything, let me know immediately."

Steve had his Captain America voice on, but underneath it, everyone could hear the echo of fear. They could not, _would not_ , lose another one.

* * *

Ross had finally managed to get to his helicopter, no thanks to the Avengers. When the alarm had been sounded, some idiot soldier of his had decided to unleash their creations that they had been trying to find a cure for. Some of the experiments had been criminals, the earlier ones. The others had been volunteers. But no matter who it was, their minds eventually decayed into nothing. For some, it took minutes. For others, a few lucky ones, it had taken weeks. But now, his men were dead. He may have been able to find a cure for the gamma poisoning eventually, but no one could cure death. Somehow, even from beyond the grave, Banner was still mocking him.

His pilot had been waiting on the roof for what must have been twenty minutes by the time he was able to escape his office. He could see the Avengers taking out his creations one by one, and hoped that he would have time to get the dog tags to send back to their families. Any general knows loss is unpreventable, but it still tore at him for every soldier's life he saw extinguished. His men were good, always willing to die for the cause, to do what is right without ever questioning orders. They deserved better than madness and death. But that was Banner's legacy. His blood ruined the minds of honest men, and turned them into murdering, uncontrollable beasts, just like the man himself had been. It seemed that with this latest turn out, the Hulk research had reached its end. There was no way to harness the power and create a creature capable of thought. He should have saved Banner and sought more ways to control him, rather then letting him kill even more of his men through his poisoned blood.

But, all of that would have to wait. Right now, the General needed to get off of this base and report to his superiors. With a heavy push out of the emergency exit, he stumbled onto the roof, finding his helicopter idling and ready for take off. A quick slap to the door alerted his pilot, and the soldier nodded back at him before Ross climbed into the back of the chopper. He buckled himself in, and banged the hull of the craft again, signalling he was ready for take off...

Yet, nothing happened. A few minutes dragged by with nothing but the hum of the helicopter engines and the buffeting of the blades in the air, until those, too, were stopped.

He was expecting the hand when it shot out to grab him. What he wasn't expecting was to find it locking around his throat, a pathetically small grasp with a surprisingly powerful grip. It wasn't cutting off air… yet. But the threat was there.

Hovering over him was none other than the infamous Black Widow, and her Widow's Bite was aimed directly at his head, the barrel of the gun level with his left eye. It certainly wasn't his first time looking at a gun pointed at his head, but it wasn't an experience he was hoping to repeat.

"Tell me what you want so I can get this over with, Romanoff," Ross growled. The agent just smiled sweetly at him, the hate in her green eyes reminding him just a tad too much of Banner.

"Trust me, General, you want this to end later rather than sooner, unless you're suddenly suicidal," Natasha corrected, tone disgustingly gentle.

"You're not going to kill me, Romanoff. You might have done so before you joined your little club, but you don't want to get your hands dirty anymore. Luckily for this country, I have no problem doing that. So if you're looking for answers, you won't get them. If you're looking for an apology, you might as well save yourself some time and kill me now, because it won't happen."

The agent and the General stared each other down for a few moments, before Natasha smiled once more, eyes alight with murderous glee. It was only then, the second before her finger flexed around her trigger, that Ross realized he had just made the greatest- and last- mistake of his life.


	16. Chapter 16

When Clint found Natasha, she was in the General's office, going through files and uploading useful information to her own Stark phone.

"Tasha! Thank god, where have you been?"

Nat didn't turn to see his face, she knew his expression already, that one half-relieved, half-pissed off scowl he wore whenever she went rogue on a mission- which was, unsurprisingly, not all that rare.

"Had to take care of something," she shrugged, still clicking away at the computer. Ross had been a man who loved old technology, that was for sure. There wasn't a touch screen in sight.

"For Bruce," she added after a few minutes in which Clint didn't answer. That was their game they played. When they knew the other wasn't done, they didn't prod, just waited silently. In the end, they always got the answer they were looking for.

"You didn't…" Clint breathed.

"I did," Nat returned with a shrug, finishing up the data transfer before wiping the computer. When she turned back to Clint, he was looking at her in both horror and glee.

"He's dead," the man said. It wasn't a question. Still, Natasha nodded, and Clint's face broke out into a horrific grin.

"Thank you," he said at last. Nat simply nodded again, and then they walked out of the office side by side, leaving the past behind them. It wasn't really their thing to go dragging it back up again. 

* * *

"Got her, she lost her mic when she went to look for Ross," Clint said into his headset as soon as they set foot outside.

"And the blood?" Steve prompted, already walking towards them to catalogue their injuries.

"Not mine," Nat replied.

"Did you find Ross?" Maria asked over the speaker, which Steve said out loud for Natasha.

"No, I think the experiments got to him first," she shrugged, shooting Clint a look that said, 'Don't you dare say otherwise, or I'm getting each of your kids their own puppy.'

"Haha, old bastard got what he deserved!" Tony smirked, earning a glare from Steve.

"Tony….." the super-soldier warned. Immediately, the engineer snapped his mouth shut and scowled, but thankfully didn't say anything else.

"Did anyone get Ross' computer?" Maria asked, deftly changing the topic.

"Yes, I'm syncing it with Stark's systems now," Natasha replied, eyes not leaving the phone in her hand. Maria could see Steve looking at the blood on her face suspiciously. Gamma blood was radioactive, both Clint and Natasha knew not to fight any gamma-powered enemies at close range. And yet, Natasha had splatter on her face and uniform. She also wasn't showing any signs of radiation sickness. Which meant that the blood was human. If she had run into Ross…..

But then again, Captain America wasn't a scientist, just a soldier. It wasn't his job to question the stories his teammates told him, and he was certainly far from caring whether the soldier had met his end by his own hand…. Or had been helped along the way by another's.

"Guys," Tony cut in, breaking up Steve's thoughts, "This isn't the only lab."

"What do you mean?" Clint growled, fists clenching at his sides. Steve shot him a wary look. The archer was uncontrollable at this point, off his rocker. The last thing he needed was another revenge mission. Or, maybe it was exactly what he needed.

"Tony?" he prompted, looking up in surprise to see the man was waiting for his go-ahead to continue. When had he completely lost the ability to predict his team? Did he even really know them anymore?

"Ross was sending his information to another lab on a different base. There's no contact name, but he was getting information back on different ways to recreate the gamma exposure that turned.. Bruce… into the Hulk."

If anyone noticed how the billionaire's voice broke on his friend's name, no one commented.

"Alright, then that's where we go, what's the name of the base?"

"White Sands Base, a town called Otero, in New Mexico," Tony relayed, eyes squinting at the screen.

"Did you say Otero, friend?" Thor asked, stepping up to stand beside Clint. The archer shot him the same knowing look.

"That's where Fury said they were keeping Banner's body," Hill offered. Her eyes were hard as steel, a look shared by Clint and Thor. Fury had been working with Ross all this time.

Behind them, a heavy crunching sound caused all their eyes to shift, just in time to watch Natasha's phone fall to the dust at her feet, thin metal body completely crushed.

"We will get him back, Tasha," Clint said softly, taking a tentative step towards her. She fixed him with a glare that stopped him in his tracks.

"And how long has he been working with Ross? How long did he keep Bruce's warrant, and his location, from us? No, fuck this. It's been going on long enough. I say we go get Bruce, and then we deal with Fury," Tony replied, gaze glued to his phone screen.  
"We can't just go kill Fury, Tony. He may have wronged us, but…" Steve tried, only to be cut off by the engineer's emotional gaze refocusing on the Captain's blue eyes.

"He _sold_ Bruce to them. They promised him weapons in return. At the very beginning of this, when Bruce was alive, he _sold_ him like a commodity. Are you really suggesting we stand by and let him get away with that?"

"What are you talking about, Stark?" Hill asked, carefully wading into the space between Tony and Steve. Natasha still stood watching her phone sparking in the dirt. Thor gripped his hammer so tightly his knuckles were white. Clint just locked eyes with Steve, as if daring him to suggest they play nice again.

"It's right here on Ross' records. Fury offered him the proof he needed to get a warrant for Bruce's arrest, and in return, Ross promised him gamma weapons that harnessed the Hulk's power," Tony said, articulating every word tumultuously.

"The treachery of your allies knows no bounds," Thor observed, voice dark.

"What now, _Captain_ , surely you can't suggest we just play house again, this time," Clint snapped.

Tony turned his glare onto the archer, phone shaking in his hand.

"It's not his fault! He did the best he could with the information he had," the engineer growled.

"Stark's right, Barton. I don't think storming into Fury's office and demanding he hand over his personal files would have done Banner any favors when he was alive," Hill put in, ignoring Thor's snort.

"Why ever not? T'is the only method we have tried thus far which has earned us any reward," the demigod demanded.

"Clint, I've already said I'm sorry. I… I tried everything I could," Steve stammered hopelessly, Captain persona fading to reveal the 25-year-old soldier beneath the mask. Tony had never seen the man look so vulnerable.

"Sorry? Banner is dead, Rogers. If we had done everything we could, he would be standing here instead of us," Clint hissed.

"Enough!"

At the sound of Natasha's outburst, all heads turned her way once more. Tony's mouth shut with an audible click, while Clint's glare softened when it landed on her. Her face was pale, lips pursed and cheeks gaunt. Her watery eyes surveyed them all one by one, visibly challenging anyone to say another word. When no one dared, her glare faded as a tear streaked its way down her bloodied face.

"Is this what Bruce would have wanted? Is any of this what Bruce would have wanted? He'd be rolling in his grave if he had one. Your behavior is a disgrace to him, to his memory, to everything he stood for," she spat, voice so quiet her audience was barely breathing in an effort to hear it.

"Tasha…." Clint started.

"No," she snapped with such ferocity, the archer actually jumped.

"No, no more, Clint. No more blame. This isn't Steve's fault. This is Ross' fault, and Fury's fault. As guilty as we all feel, we can't let it consume us. This… All of this. This is not how we should remember Bruce. When was the last time anyone even said his name without spitting it? When was the last time any of you talked about him for anything other than to place blame? It's enough, time to grow up and move on. We fucked up, but we didn't kill him. That burden is on Ross' head, not ours. And I hope he rots. But now, we need to go get Bruce, and then we need to worry about us. We're falling apart, and none of you fuckheads can get past your own petty guilt to see the bigger picture here. Bruce is dead….." More tears slipped past her veil, eyes clouding with sorrow, and she was looking over all of their heads. Whoever she was seeing, Clint knew it wasn't them.

"He's dead, and none of this pointless arguing will fucking bring him back. Now get over yourselves and let's go get our friend. And maybe, just maybe, seeing him will remind you of just how much he'd hate to see you doing this to yourselves."

With that, Nat turned and strode right out of the base. They watched her walk past the fence, and disappear behind the guard post. No one moved a muscle until they heard the quinjet engines drone on.

"She's right. Fuck, she's right," Clint whispered, turning back to look at Steve sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Cap. This isn't your fault."

"And it's not yours, either, Clint. She was right," Steve offered, holding out his hand for the archer to shake. He found it clasped instead, held tightly in the air in a grip of desperation. Within moments, Tony and Thor's hands joined them, the demigod's grasp on theirs dwarfing their own hands.

Off to the side, Hill watched stoically. The scene was warming, but she was still chilled to the bone by what she had seen. If Fury had thought losing Banner wouldn't affect the Avengers, he was an idiot. The team was a mess. Not that he wasn't already an idiot. How could the man she have served faithfully for all these years, turn out to be someone who would sell out someone he had promised to protect? Before she could think any further, Hill was whisked from her internal monologue by Thor's booming voice.

"Aye, let us go retrieve our brother."


	17. Chapter 17

Bruce was gone.

Well, sort of. The man lay supine on the floor in the middle of his room. Not in the corner, surrounded by solid wall on two sides, but in the middle. Looking up at the bare ceiling with dead eyes. There no was threat anymore. At least, it didn't feel like it.

He brought his glazed eyes slowly towards the bracelet clamped around his wrist, holding his hand up in the air like a lazy conductor, watching it float back and forth. His pupils couldn't seem to focus, refused to contract.

There was something he needed to do. It buzzed in his head with mosquito-like persistence, tugging at the back of his mind. He had… He had…

Oh, right.

He had almost escaped. Twice. The first, was by slitting his wrists with… something. He caught a brief flash of a light bulb shattering against a floor, a piece of sharp glass glinting in the sudden darkness.

The flesh had torn so easily, the blood spilling so freely. His heart had sang as it pumped his life out of his body, and the last sound he had heard was his own laughter before the darkness swallowed him.

And then came the rage.

Hulk's memories were always disjointed at best. There was anger. Hatred for puny weak Banner. How had he not known that his own bipolarity had been the beast tempting him with escape? His ignorance was laughable.

Then there had been darts. Smashing. One woman who would never see her family again, if she had any. Ear-splitting roars.

And darkness, once more.

Bruce couldn't remember now what had been so important about escaping. Everything was good here. He was back in his collar, back in his cell, with a new bracelet. And everything was good.

Hulk coming had healed his injuries, at least. Mostly. His tongue sat curled behind his teeth, the muscle feeling foreign and uncomfortable after all these weeks. Or had it been months?  
Bruce sighed. It didn't matter. It was back. And it felt weird, just like the rest of him. His body had been briefly wound free, but then they had opened him up again. Taken something. A spleen? A lung?

The blonde scientist had been there. Yelling about months of progress lost. Telling them to get something, anything.

It didn't matter.

Nothing mattered anymore. It just was. Bruce felt silly, if anything at all. Trying to escape. What for?

He was good here. He didn't hurt anymore. Not a wink. He felt like he was floating, the ceiling swirling above him in a wonderful spectacle.

He wanted to slap the annoying mosquito, but he couldn't move his arms all that well. They felt so… heavy. He was tired. So tired.

Heaviness opened in him like a chasm, swallowing him up wholly and suddenly. He felt rage turn his stomach. His torso launched forward just in time to spill vomit into his lap. A searing pain split him open from navel to sternum. Emotion consumed wasn't tired… He was angry…and he had a plan…. He was… He was….

His bracelet beeped.

He was tired.

 _"Someone grab Banner. They're almost here."_ _  
_ _  
_"There's no time. Leave him, we have what we need."

The darkness claimed him once more, and he fell into it gratefully.

Everything was fine. 

* * *

When the team got there, the base was empty.

But not empty in the sense that it was abandoned. Empty in the way that meant cups of coffee still steamed on the lab tables. Papers littered the floors. Computers were smashed against the desks. Drawers overturned, pencils crushed by hurried feet.

Steve crouched by a stack of papers scattered across the floor, trying to make sense of the jargon that it bore, to no avail.

"Whoever they were, they sure cleared out quick," he said, looking back over his shoulder. His team mates were also scavenging, though only Tony seemed to know what he was looking for. He held a paper tightly in his hand, brow furrowed.

"This is bad," the billionaire muttered. He grabbed another paper from the ground by his feet, narrowing his eyes at it.

"What is it?"

"Weapon blueprints. Biomechanics. Radiation. Biological warfare. Cap, this is big."

"On what scale?"

Tony looked up at him, locking eyes in a gaze that held none of his usual mirth.

"Nuclear."

"Alright. Stark, Thor, get on it. Find them. Hill will follow in the quinjet," Steve ordered, nodding at Hill as she saluted and hurried out.

"What of Banner, Captain?" Thor asked, hesitantly readjusting his grip on his hammer.

"We'll get Banner, you go," Clint said, laying a sympathetic hand on the demi-gods shoulder. Thor covered it with his own for a moment and nodded, then spun his hammer and was crashing through the ceiling before Tony's helmet had even closed over his face.

"Can't anyone teach that guy how to use a door?" The billionaire muttered under his breath, voice metallic through his helmet. Firing his thrusters, he followed out of the gaping hole above them.

"Alright, Romanoff, find Banner if he's here. Barton, I need your eyes. Comb through everything you can find, figure out what they were planning. I'm going to see if anyone stayed behind. Keep in radio contact. If you find something, let me know."

"Aye aye, Cap," Natasha replied in time with Clint's, "Sure thing."

Steve pulled his shield tightly to his body, setting off down the opposite hall, trying to ignore the bad feeling tearing its way through his gut.

* * *

 _"Captain, we have sighted a convoy. What would you have us do?"_ Thor's voice crackled over the radio at the same time Tony's cameras synced up with his phone. Steve counted three armored trucks and a supply van, gusting down the dusty desert road at 200 miles an hour.

"Stop them, by any means necessary. There are too many lives at stake here."

 _"Very well."_

_"Excuse me, Cap, but did you just give_ ** _Stark_** _and_ ** _Thor_ **_free reign?"_ Hill asked incredulously.

"Of course not, you're there to supervise."

 _"And to think I got you a birthday present last year."_ _  
_

* * *

 __Natasha opened every door she could find. Supply closets, labs, dormitories, restrooms. Every room was the same as the last. Empty, left in a hurry. She would comb through the papers later. For now, she needed to find Bruce. Needed to see him again.

Mentally, she prepared herself for what she would find. There would likely be nothing of the original man left, or he could be in pieces. Worse, he could be formaldehyde stiff and left open on a lab table somewhere.

Or he could be gone completely, ash like he was supposed to be and she would never touch a part of him again.

Grief sank its searing teeth into her heart, and she shook it off with a grimace. There was no time for that right now.

"Cap, nothing yet. Only one room left, looks like an armory. The door is reinforced," she said to her com.

 _"Understood, Romanoff. Proceed with caution. If someone were to make a last stand, it would be there."_

The lock was a joke, child's play compared to the locks at Stark tower. (Not that she had ever had to explain to Jarvis why she was practicing her skills on Tony's personal booze stash).

The door swung open with a heavy skidding sound, revealing a metal floor and a dark room, as if the power had been cut. One hand aiming her pistol, Natasha flicked on her flashlight and started in the corners. Surprisingly, the room seemed to be empty. It was small, much too small for an armory, and only a bucket rested in the corner. It was then that a groan cut the silence, automatically attracting the barrel of her gun to its location. The middle of the room, past the dim light cast by the hall.

"Cap, we've got a live one here," she relayed to her com, aim held steady and flashlight finding the feet of the figure, which were bare, for whatever reason.

 _"On our way. Can you identify them?"_ _  
_  
"It's…."

Natasha brought her flashlight up the line of the man's body, illuminating a disgusting pair of sweatpants covered in sick, a bare torso with fresh stitches pulling at raw-looking wounds, and finally, a face so achingly familiar that it sent her gun sailing straight to the floor.

"No…." 

_"Tasha, what is it?"_ Clint asked.

All she could do was sink to her knees by his side, hands hovering above him, flashlight forgotten at her feet. Her breath caught in her throat, words stopped forming in her head. Everything in her screamed with agony, with joy.. She couldn't discern between the two, couldn't care less.

 _"Romanoff, report."_

In the dim cast off of the flashlight, she could see his eyes. Open, looking at her. Alive.

 _"Nat, we're on our way to you, come in."_ _  
_ _  
_He raised a hand so painfully slow, his fingertips only inches from her cheek, arm trembling with the effort.

 _"Come on Tasha, say something. This is Moscow all over again."_ _  
_ _  
_His hand fell before he found her face, landing heavily in her lap. She clasped it in her own, holding it like a lifeline. He was so cold. His jaw moved, but made no sound. Chapped lips mouthed her name.

 _"_ ** _Natasha!"_**

"Tasha," he wheezed, squeezed her fingers weakly in his own. Shaking, her fingers found her com.

"It's….."

"Tasha….."

 _"Nat?"_

"It's Bruce."


	18. Chapter 18

Thor and Tony made short work of the trucks. Tony took the tires out with well-aimed pulses, and Thor pried the doors off their hinges and threw the occupying people to the ground behind him, where Tony and Hill waited with cuffs and sedatives. They'd figure out what to do with them afterwards.

Surprisingly, the vast majority of those captured seemed to be non-combatants. A few scientists, a few research staff, and only a handful of soldiers.

"Cap, we have them cuffed and tagged. I'll put them aboard the quinjet and have Hill shuttle them back to you. Thor and I will look through the trucks for anything interesting," Tony said over his com once the packaging was done.

 _"Change of plans, Tony. I need you and Thor to come in. We've had a… complication,"_ Steve replied. Tony could only hope the shaking in his voice was from a shitty com connection, but something told him it wasn't.

He looked up to Thor, who had heard the words on his own com and was already spinning his hammer. With a nod to Tony, he shot off. The billionaire had no choice but to follow, chest heavy. All he could hope was that they hadn't lost someone else.

He didn't think the team could survive that.

* * *

No sooner had Steve gotten off the call with Tony did things turn south. The man was barely conscious, eyes half-lidded, mumbling Natasha's name or something that sounded like, "No". His whole body quivered with every inhale, which was shallow and wheezed.

The soldier knelt at the doctor's other shoulder, across from where Clint was gaping at him. He met the archer's eyes with a look of his own, suspicion and confusion lacing their gaze.

Natasha was murmuring in Russian, something soothing sounding as she stroked his hair and breathed deeply and evenly, locking eyes with him. He would look up at her at times, gaze mellow and subdued, try to match his breathing to hers. It took Steve a moment to realize she was keeping him calm, attempting to reach him through his mental stupor.

"What… what do we do?" Clint asked, looking over Banner's form as though he could feel the man's wounds.

"We need to get him to a hospital," Steve said immediately. He reached out to touch Bruce's hand, turning it gently to press two fingers to the inside of his wrist. His radial pulse was barely there, fluttering weakly beneath the soldier's touch.

Bruce stirred at the feeling of his body being moved, jerking his head down to stare at Steve. His face showed no signs of recognition, and he hesitantly curled his fingers and tried to pull his arm away. The movement taxed him though, if the sudden hammering of his heart was any indication. His pulse bit at Steve's fingertips like it wanted to break through the skin and attack. Banner's breathing came in small gasps, and his eyes shot open fully, looking aware for the first time since they'd found him.

"Steve…." he muttered, lips refusing to move in a timely fashion, dragging out the s into a hiss that stemmed into a hiss of pain. The doctor tried to lift himself, gritting his teeth against the effort. Before anyone could put a hand on his chest to stop him, a beeping sounded from his left wrist, laying by Clint's knee. After four doubled beeps, Bruce fell back down, head landing heavily in Natasha's lap. His arm went slack in the Captain's grip, fingers falling splayed and still. Another tremor went through him, and his eyes slid shut completely.

Clint grabbed Banner's wrist and held it up, fingering a thick cuff that encircled a third of his forearm. A light flashed green lazily against its sleek black surface.

"That must be how they are controlling him. That and the collar," Natasha said, breaking off her mantra now that Bruce seemed to be under once more.

 _"Cap, this is Hill. Everyone's been bagged and tagged and we're ready to roll out, where do you want me to take them?"_ _  
_ _  
_Clint jumped at the sound of Steve's com, dragging his eyes away from the cuff to look up at the Captain. He felt Natasha's eyes on him as well, waiting for orders and clarification, as if he had any idea how this was possible or how it all made sense.

"Copy that, Hill, good job. Make sure they won't be waking up anytime soon, and head back here. We're going to need the jet."

 _"Understood, Cap. ETA about 15 minutes. Over and out."_ _  
_  
Holding back a heavy sigh, Steve turned to Clint.

"Barton, guard the door. I am going out to brief Tony and Thor, before they get inside."

The archer nodded, scooping up his bow and heading towards the entryway. Without the light, the room seemed much darker and larger around them. The Captain held back a shiver, and shifted around to lean down over Bruce's legs.

"We're going to move him closer to the door, stay with him and alert me immediately if there is any change. Understood?"

Natasha nodded, taking Bruce's shoulders in her hands, and scooting back slowly, so his head gently slid to the floor.

"Are you sure we should be moving him?" she asked, sounding more like herself again.

"I don't see any neck injuries or broken bones, but we will take it slow, just be careful of the stitches. We need to be able to see him properly," Steve replied, wishing he was as sure as he sounded. Together, they hoisted the man's limp form from the floor, Steve taking most of the weight while Natasha kept his head from falling back. They moved him to a spot a few feet from the doorway, just far enough that the door wouldn't hit him if they needed to close it. Here, bathed in the bright light of the hallway, Bruce looked even worse. His skin was sickly pale, and somehow he was even thinner than when Steve had seen his corpse the first time. His breathing was shallow, face contorted despite the drugs in his system.

Up close, the stitches looked grisly, hastily done and pulling at his skin at uneven angles, dried blood crusting the thread and blood smeared across his abdomen. The sweat pants were filthy, crusted with blood and riding low and loose on Banner's hips, where his bones jutted out starkly against his emaciated form. Steve was no stranger to torture, or bodies, but somehow, knowing they had delayed coming at all made him feel as though he would be sick. The guilt deepened when he rose and walked away to go greet the rest of his team, because he was grateful to be away from the stench of vomit and blood.

* * *

Natasha watched Steve go without knowing whether she envied him or not. It hurt to look at Bruce, to smell the filth on him and see the evidence of every abuse he endured in the lines on his face. It hurt to know he had been alive, all these months, and they'd never even considered it a possibility. They'd come to retrieve a corpse, and now they had the daunting and difficult task of saving and rebuilding a man who'd come back from the dead only to fall prey to the same hands that drove him there. And now he dangled on the precipice, each labored breath threatening to be the last. She found herself counting the seconds between inhales, resting her hand on his heart just to assure herself that yes, it was still beating. Slow, minute, arrhythmic, and soft beneath her palm. She could only pray that somewhere, Bruce was in there still, fighting.

Maybe, for once, they wouldn't be too late.

Her thoughts were broken by the sound of heavy metal armor stomping down the hallway, red and gold gleaming brightly as the suit crossed the threshold and stood motionless by the door.

Tony looked stricken, pale and flushed all at once with the breath knocked out of him. His hair was tousled, hand clenched tight around the door frame, eyes glued to Bruce's body with a feverish intensity, as though blinking or looking away would make it a dream.

"Bruce…" he breathed, breaking whatever spell that had frozen him to take the final few steps over to his best friend's unconscious form.

"He's breathing, but it's unsteady. His pulse is weak. He needs medical attention," Natasha said, hoping to break through to the billionaire. He nodded, indicating he had heard her, but never tore his eyes away from the physicist, retracting a glove to reach out and brush the top of his hand tentatively.

Thor sauntered in with his usual gusto, eyes landing on Bruce but then immediately looking away. Natasha couldn't blame him, she wouldn't have wanted to see it either, if it weren't for the way his chest continued to rise and fall. He was alive, and that meant he needed her, no matter the cost to her own comfort.

"No hospital will treat him, he's still a fugitive if outside Ross' custody, his blood is irradiated, and his system wouldn't respond to normal drugs anyways. We need to get him back to the tower," Tony mustered up finally, hand now firmly clasped around Banner's.

"If we take him to the tower, anyone who is after him will find him in minutes. We can't risk it, not with the state he is in," Natasha countered, tone soft but firm.

"I could take him to Asgard, the healers there would be able to help him, and no mortal could find him," Thor offered, resting a hand on Tony's shoulder, being careful to look only at Bruce's face. Sorrow flickered brightly in his blue eyes, hand clasped white-knuckled around his hammer.

"He wouldn't survive the trip," Tony said sadly. The inventor closed his eyes for a moment, squeezing Bruce's hand as he did so and sighing heavily before he opened his eyes and spoke.

"We need to take him to international waters. Now. Fury will know we were here, he might be sending a contingent as we speak. The quinjet has medical supplies, and I can bribe a medical professional or get one to come, a lot of people owe me favours. But we need to move now, he doesn't have much time left."

A spike of terror tore its way through Natasha's chest. Even now, with him breathing and surrounded by friends, Bruce was still in danger. She questioned whether the universe would really be so cruel as to bring him back to life only to take him away once he was safe again, but she had seen enough in her life to know cruelty knew no bounds. She clenched her fist above his heart, resting it above where his life fluttered away beneath her fingers, and she knew if Bruce died, so would every single one of the people who had any part in that death.

They weren't called Avengers for nothing.


	19. Chapter 19

Thor wasn't sure what disturbed him so about his fallen comrade. Banner was alive, that in itself was a miracle even Heimdall couldn't have foreseen. But the man was only barely so. Mortals were so… fragile. It was frightening, at times, to be reminded thus. Of all mortals, Bruce Banner seemed the least likely to be in such a position, but Thor had seen the photos of his body.

They were nothing compared to the real thing.

Joy and horror warred within him, a mighty battle over whether to honor Banner's triumph over Death himself or to sorrow for the man's withered state. A broken, wounded warrior was a pitiful sight to the demigod, being unable to lick your wounds with the salt of battle was a fate he would not wish on his worst enemy.

In the end, sorrow won. He did not see, but felt, Clint lay a hand on his shoulder in response to the tear that streaked down his cheek. He wanted blood for their brother, him being alive still did naught to change that.

* * *

Tony was trembling, inside the suit. Steve's words still echoed in his head, the sheer impossibility of them defying every logical conclusion he could draw.

 _Banner is alive._

In the background, Jarvis was running research on international law and also compiling first aid and medical training sources for when they would need them.

"Sir, I can attempt to reach Helen Cho and arrange for her to meet us once we decide our destination."

"Do it," Tony said, earning a confused look from Nat before she seemed to piece it together. The woman was never that slow, she was more affected than she was letting show.

"Jarvis, buy an island. I don't care which one, just make sure it's people-free and unclaimed."

"Sir, I cannot buy an island that has not been claimed. There would be no one to pay. I can, however, direct you to several land masses that have been recently discovered by your private satellite." 

"Fine, fine. Just do it, J!" 

* * *

Three grueling hours later, Jarvis had seen them safely to the island, if it could be called that. There was room to land the quinjet and not much else, but that didn't matter. Clint just wanted them on the ground. He'd been doing compressions for thirty minutes now, Bruce's heart having given out prior to landing. Natasha was breathing for him, unshed tears in her eyes as she forced life into his lungs over and over. As they landed, she looked over to him and they both had the same thought.

 _Did Bruce really want this?_

Cho was unreachable. Jarvis had tried to hail her three times, and on the third, got a receptionist for another doctor. There was no one else they trusted with this, no one who had the technology to fix this. It all just depended on Bruce.

Steve opened the back of the ship to let some light in, while Tony played Bruce's favorite music on the speakers. Thor was patrolling, circling the island and reporting the all clear every now and then.

"Wait," Natasha said, "stop for a minute."

Everyone froze. The music cut off and Clint backed off a few inches with Natasha. Somehow, by some miracle, Bruce was awake. Breathing on his own, eyes fluttering open, and _alive._

"Bruce? Bruce, buddy, can you hear me?" Tony was the first to approach, still too loud in his armor and Bruce winced at the noise. He raised a flimsy hand above his eyes, whether shielding himself from the light or a blow, Clint couldn't tell. 

He mumbled something, deep in his chest and with a shaking voice. Tony leaned closer, ear a few inches from Bruce's head. Clint heard the words in his earpiece, Tony's mic picking up the phrase.

"No more….. No more…." Bruce panted, eyes wild.

In the space of silence between those words, Clint could swear he heard five hearts breaking.

"I am going to throw Fury into the Abyss between worlds," Thor growled over coms. Clint could only nod in agreement.

"J, get me Hill. Now," Tony snarled.

"At once, sir."

Natasha approached Bruce's side, trying to take his hand in hers. He flinched away bodily.

"No more."

Nat's eyes met Clint's, and again they shared a single thought.

 _How are we going to fix this?_


	20. Chapter 20

"Hill, come in, we've got a problem."

 _"What is it, Stark?"_

"Stark, we need you over here!"

Tony looked up to see Steve waving him over, towards Bruce. Tony didn't want to be there right now, didn't want to be here right now. He wanted to be eight months into the past, Bruce and him pacing a lab and debating the possibility of infinite energy. He wanted his best friend whole and alive and safe.

"Stark!"

He had one of those.

 _"Stark? What's going on? Where are you?"_ Hill pressed in his feed.

"Nevermind, Cap will brief you when we get a chance. There's been a complication."

 _"A complication… what-"_ Tony cut off her connection before she could finish the thought, and stepped out of his suit for what felt like the first time in days.

"Tony, Bruce needs you," Clint said as he approached.

Bruce was still on the makeshift bed, his eyes wide and breath erratic. Tony recognized it right away. Flashback.

"Brucie, where are you right now?"

He knelt down beside the doctor, hand on the bed beside Bruce's, but not touching, not quite yet.

"No more… I can't….I'll do it… Just no more… _Please_."

He wouldn't meet anyone's eyes, just staring incoherently into the ceiling as though it held the answers he was looking for. Tasha fell to her knees beside Tony, tears in her eyes. She was frozen, and it was then that Tony realized he wasn't the only one who had flashbacks.

"You're safe now, Bruce. Hey, bud, look at me. You're not there anymore," Tony said gently, using his hand to lightly turn Bruce's head towards him. He stiffened but didn't flinch away from the contact. The man's brown eyes grazed over Tony's momentarily before falling onto Natasha, and there he froze.

"Monster," he gasped, and Natasha found herself reaching for his hand. He allowed the contact, even curled his fingers around hers.

"Monsters," she echoed, and Tony could only sit silently as he saw something pass between the pair. He wanted to shout, to scream. To say that they weren't monsters. Calling Bruce a monster was what started this whole thing. But he found himself unable to speak. Bruce's eyes were tearing up, and Natasha leaned up to kiss away a tear from his blood-stained cheek. He suddenly realized he lacked context, lacked the history between them. Some unspoken knowledge passed by over his head, and Tony knew that he had never carried the burden Bruce, and evidently Natasha, did. For whatever reason, their short conversation worked. Bruce looked around and saw them, _saw him_ , and smiled.

"Tony…"

Tony clasped Bruce on the shoulder and grinned.

"About time, Brucie boy. I was beginning to think you'd forgotten me…. Which is just impossible, really. I mean, have you seen me?"

Bruce laughed, weakly and with a wince, but he laughed. Tony had never thought he would hear that laugh again, never thought he would see that smile or those eyes or his friend…

"Bruce…." he murmured, feeling tears prick at the corner of his eyes.

Steve moved into Bruce's line of vision, face drawn and pallid. Bruce's eyes glanced up and he smiled again, more tiredly.

"Cap," he acknowledged.

"You gave us quite a scare there, Banner. How are you feeling?" Steve said, feeling hollow. Feeling as though this moment was a dream, not quite real, and nothing he said would ever be right to acknowledge the shit Bruce had been through while they dragged their feet.

Something seemed to cross Bruce's mind, and he looked back down at Tony, then his eyes slid back to Steve. His smile faded into something else, something lost.

"You came," he said. It was almost a question, as if he too couldn't quite grasp the reality. As if he was surprised.

 _No,_ Tony thought, _as if he thought we wouldn't come at all._

"You came…. You…. You changed your mind," he said softly, but Tony could hear his breathing quicken.

"No, Bruce, wait!" Clint called, but it was too late. Bruce's cuff beeped and the scientist slid back into unconsciousness, his hand going limp in Natasha's, tears still drying on his cheeks.

"What in the hell was that?" Tony demanded, turning to glare at Clint, as if he somehow caused it.

"It's his collar. And the cuff. It releases some sort of sedative into his bloodstream whenever he gets….excited," Steve said. Tony looked back to the hand clasped in Natasha's and took it gently from her grasp. The cuff was nearly seamless, but a few inches under the blinking green light, Tony could see a thin crack in the metal.

"We need Wanda," he said.

Steve looked at him oddly, but pulled out his phone to dial her just the same.

* * *

Wanda, contrary to what people thought, was not a child. He childhood was lost, buried in the ruins of her home, crushed with her parent's bodies. Her adulthood was branded into her, in the shape of the Stark logo on the bomb she feared would kill her. No, after staring death in the face and putting a name to it, she was not a child. But Pietro? He'd never stopped being one. Joyful, funny, charismatic, he was everything she wasn't. And without him, she felt like nothing. She felt hollowed out, a husk of old memories and confusion. She had nothing, was nothing.

But she did have a secret, and that secret was Bruce Banner. The man she had killed. The man who, despite bearing the burden for her crimes, had written her a letter. A letter Jarvis had sent after his death, with a simple message of, "He would want you to have this."

The letter had changed her life, changed her. For so long she had felt so alone. Such a monstrous girl, a monstrous ability. Peitro, vivacious Pietro, knew nothing. He had super speed, but he was still human. Somewhere, somehow, she had crossed that line.

She had crossed it so far that a monster had said he'd kill her for being a threat.

After that, Bruce and Wanda had never really talked. They had no reason to. She spent her time with Vision, mostly, sometimes with Steve. But she had never been able to shake that moment, to shake that fear. The memory of looking into Banner's eyes, and seeing only her own monstrosity reflected back. He had been little more than a mirror, and it burned her.

But the letter came and changed everything. Because the person she had hurt most, the person she had killed, forgave her.

Ever since the Avengers had left to go retrieve his body, she had been poring over the letter, trying to grasp the words in a new way. Anything to relieve the guilt inside her, anything to stop her fury from gnawing away at what was left of her humanity. She was angry, she was so angry. And it was at herself, because in the end, she had no one else to blame.

But then she had Bruce, from beyond the grave, the only human to possibly understand what it felt like to be her.

 _Wanda,_

 _I know we don't know each other. Well, I don't know you. I'm sure you know me very well, after seeing what's inside my head._

She winced, but reread the line again. Like he told her to.

 _I'm writing this because I think you need it. Because I need it. I needed it when I was younger, especially after the accident._

She remembered, a flash of green. Betty's eyes. Then her broken body.. These weren't her memories, weren't anyone's anymore, but she carried them anyways.

 _I've never been what people would call a hero. I mean, sure, sometimes I help more than I screw up, but that's just chance. Every good thing I've done has been chance…. Tony would chew me out if he could hear me now. He sees me as something I'm not, ever since I saved him._

A flash of red, burning through a green haze. A silent inner plea from a broken man watching, "Save him, please."

 _But hey, maybe he is on to something. It always helps to get another perspective. We as scientists know about biases. And that brings me back to why I'm writing this. Wanda, I don't need to be a mindreader to know you are lost. To know how much you're hurting. And I've seen you, the way you avoid mirrors, the way you look at Cap and Tony in their shining armor and think, "Why can't that be me?"_

 _I know this because I do the same thing. Some people are born into this golden world of heroism and privilege, like Thor and Tony, while others work their way there, like Cap. But people look at them and think "hero". No matter what they have been through, no matter how hard it gets, they rise above it._

 _And then there are people like Natasha and Clint, quiet heroes with a past full of unheroic things. Even Vision has his roots in evil, a part of him comes from Ultron. But they, too, rise above it and get the people's praise._  
 _But for people like us, for_ ** _monsters_** _like us, well, there is no praise. Our powers, our way of rising above, go against the natural order. To read minds, move things with your thoughts, twist the brains of people with a flick of your finger._

Wanda flinched at those words, such a grotesque summary of her power, her curse.

 _Or the ability to turn into a literal monster, to be unable to be killed. To fire a bullet in your mouth and spit it back out. These powers, Wanda, are monstrous. They define us as "Other". They make people look at us and just inherently know that we are not human, even if we started out that way. And I've tried so long and so hard to be human, to stay human. But that all stopped with a twist of your hand. A thought, and you saw what I can become. I don't know if you realized, though, that I saw you at the same time._

 _I was angry. I was so angry. Because you called out my facade and forced me to face what I really am. You killed people, Wanda, with me as your weapon._

She tried not to feel the tears running down her face, the hole eating its way through her lungs.

 _And yet, I've killed people too. So many. Too many to name, although my brain gives me the updated list every night when I try to sleep anyways. Sometimes it's not always as direct as murdering them, sometimes they are just collateral, but I killed them all the same. Whether it was by my fist or by a building I crushed, it makes no difference. We both carry many deaths, including many with the same names. But I am going to tell you something I have to tell myself everyday, and maybe it will help you more than it does me. I hope so. You need something. Someone._

 _Being a monster doesn't make you_ ** _monstrous._** **  
** **  
** _That is a choice. Always. Sometimes good people can become monstrous, and sometimes monsters can become good people. Our powers aren't ever going to be accepted. People will never look at us and feel safe. I wish I could tell you differently, I wish I could teach you how to not unsettle everyone you meet. But people have this instinct in them that sets off alarms when we get too close. But no matter what they call you, no matter what they say about you, no matter what you say about yourself…_

 _You are_ ** _not_ **_monstrous, Wanda. I need you to believe that. I need you to repeat it to yourself every night when your brain feeds you pictures of the dead. I need you to look into the mirror and whisper it to your reflection. You can be a good person, you are a good person. It doesn't matter what you_ ** _are_ **_, it matters what you_ ** _choose_ **_to be._

 _I realize this letter is long, but I needed you to hear this. You are not alone. I know Pietro is gone. I know no one understands. I know we keep company with heroes and gods. I know that you carry a burden that none of them will ever have to shoulder. I know it's impossible to ignore the cries of, "Monster!"_

 _But you are not alone. I don't care what happened between us. I don't care about the past, because we have both done terrible things. Horrible things that will always haunt us. Things that will make us wake up screaming and trying to wipe the blood from our hands. But this isn't the end. You have a brand new beginning. Use it wisely. You don't have to become me. Laugh. Love. Open up. Enjoy being with your friends._

 _And when you are ready, come find me. I have something for you._

 _Your friend,_  
 _Bruce_

She wondered, not for the first time, what it was he wanted to give her. She had asked Jarvis, but he didn't know. She wished again that she hadn't avoided Bruce. She didn't know when he had gone from wanting to kill her to calling himself her friend, but she had avoided him all the same. Because she was scared both of him and what she saw in him that she also saw in herself.

She wiped a tear off of her face, jumping when the phone vibrated in her hand and Steve's face popped up over Bruce's message.

She took a moment to compose herself, wiping away her tears before putting the phone to her ear. She was glad Steve didn't prefer video calls like the rest of the team.

"Yes?" she greeted.

"Wanda, we need you to come in."

"Come in? Where?"

Steve sighed, in the background, she heard Tony yelling, "Jarvis, send her the coordinates!"

"We'll send the coordinates to your phone, have Vision take you."

* * *

Wanda didn't need to touch him to know.

"He sleeps, but he does not rest."

Her eyes roamed his blanket-clad body, each spike of pain breathing caused marred in white in her brain. She melded her thoughts with his, felt the agony coursing through him, the desperation. He dreamt of needles and scalpels and _"Monster"._ She didn't realize how much she had lost herself until she felt Vision's arms wrap around her.

"That is not your pain," he whispered in her ear, wiping away her tears with his thumb. She nodded, still feeling the echoes of his screams.

 _I did this._

"I am not monstrous," she said under her breath. Vision looked at her oddly, but let her go. Whether or not he heard, Wanda didn't care. Bruce was the only one that had ever asked something of her for her own gain. She wouldn't let him down.

 _Not again._

"I am not monstrous," she repeated, going forward to touch his temple. His whole body froze, but his eyes never opened.

"You are not monstrous."

She wasn't sure which one of them said it, but she saw his thoughts as her own. The video, the edited clips, the carefully twisted accusations from their grief-laden words. She heard a grown man stomping on the floor calling, "Monster, you killed her!"

He was tired, so tired. She heard the beeping of his cuff, over and over again in his mind like a demented lullaby.

 _Wake up, Bruce. Your friends are here._

"You are not monstrous."

 _They left me. I'm nothing, they sent me away because I am a monster. I am nothing, no one. This isn't real, none of it is. I'm dead._

He wasn't talking to her, not really. Nor really to himself. It was just words, the way his thoughts wrapped around his mind and strangled it.

 _You were lied to. Open your eyes and see the truth. You are loved. They never stopped searching._

Bruce's brow furrowed, and suddenly she was thrown out. Back in her own body and on her knees at his side, tears streaming from her eyes.

She had seen everything. The beatings, the darkness, the surgeries, the torture. So much pain. Pain as she had never known, never wanted to know existed. She felt a hand settle on her shoulder, and leapt to her feet.

 _"Don't touch me."_

It was an echo of his pain, his pleads.

"Please," she whispered, before everything went dark.


	21. Chapter 21

Vision caught Wanda before she hit the floor, her body completely devoid of life. He had to hold her in his arms for a moment before he saw her breathing.

"She exhausted herself," he explained to the waiting Avengers. Steve nodded, and looked down at Bruce with haunted eyes.

"What did she see?"

No one wanted to know the answer to that question.

They made another bed for Wanda by strewing some blankets across seats. Vision and Clint watched over her while Steve and Natasha sat with Bruce on the other side of the jet. Tony had suited up to go take lookout duty while Thor rested. He was snoring away in the corner, legs stretched out in front of him.

"I wish I could sleep like that," Clint muttered to Vision. The man looked at him oddly, as if trying to figure out the joke, before he finally cracked a half-hearted smile, his hand never leaving Wanda's.

"I assume that after a thousand year lifespan filled with war, anyone would learn to grab sleep when they can."

Clint shrugged, feeling his stiff shoulders kink up and relax again as he did so. They had been on the move constantly since Fury's office, never a time for rest. Now, he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He couldn't bring himself to go sit near Bruce, to keep him company and smile at him when he woke up as if everything was fine, as if they hadn't failed him. He understood now, what the doctor meant when he said he was always angry. It was a hell of a force to deal with, especially when it was mostly at himself.

Sure, he still blamed Cap for a lot of it. Had their positions been switched, he was pretty confident he'd never have dragged his feet the way Steve did. But still, nothing was stopping him from taking matters into his own hands. Loathe as he was to admit it, he had believed like the rest of the team, that Bruce was immortal for all intents and purposes and the best course of action was to get him pardoned, freed legally, not make him a fugitive again.

There'd been a lot of empty words at the dinner table all those months, assurances that they would get them back. Months and months of planning, and no one wanted to think about where Bruce was then.

Now, he could see the evidence of it. Even draped in blankets, Bruce was shivering in his sleep. His face was haggard, starvation weight having sapped his strength away, with no tan or sun-kissed look that he had usually rocked. This was a man who had been tortured every single day for the last five months, and it had taken his team this long to find him and get him to safety. And some fucking job they did of it.

Sitting on an over-glorified sand bar in the middle of international waters because they _couldn't_ keep him safe otherwise. And that was the kicker. They'd failed him. They'd found him, and still they failed him. Because at any moment he could go back. They couldn't stay on this island forever, and very few places would willingly take in a fugitive. They had none of Bruce's resources or knowledge at staying under the radar. Even Clint had only ever disappeared using SHIELD resources.

He remembered trailing Bruce through Brazil once, back when SHIELD had been keeping Ross away from him. He remembered hating the weeks before Bruce found a job. He wasn't allowed to intervene, only to steer soldiers off the trail if they caught it. But he very seldom had to intervene. Bruce was smart, never stayed in one place for more than a month or two. Clint could swear sometimes he could see the man looking over his shoulder, as if he sensed him. But he made no move to indicate that he did. And if Clint sometimes bought food just to dump in the trash cans he knew Bruce frequented, well that was his own prerogative.

"I did not think it would be this hard," Vision said, interrupting Clint's thoughts.

"What?" the archer asked, looking at Vis only to follow his gaze over Wanda's sleeping form and back to Bruce's.

"Seeing him like this. I cannot imagine… No, I can imagine. And that is what troubles me. How could someone do this to another living being? I have scanned him several times now, and each one reveals worse and worse internal injuries, half-healed by a recent transformation, but the scars still there, inside of him."

"Sometimes people can do terrible things to someone they deem less than human.." Clint said, but then caught his breath in his throat, "You can scan him for injuries?"

"Of course, my eyes are capable of seeing many light spectrums that are invisible to humans."

"Can you catalogue a list of injuries so we know what to treat?" Clint was breathless, they might not have to wait for Cho anyways. Maybe they could save him, treat him themselves, keep him where it was safe.

"Yes, he has a missing spleen, kidney, partial liver, and lower left lung. Judging by the level of gamma radiation in those areas, his broken ribs, left tibia, and right ulna were before his recent transformation, but he was not without dampeners long enough for his bones to fully heal. The quick change and then forced regression seems to have set them wrong, and they will need to be fully rebroken to be set correctly… This list will be rather long, perhaps I should compile it digitally and send it to you that way," Vision said, voice troubled. His grip on Wanda's hand had grown tighter as he spoke, until eventually he had to break his gaze away and move it back down to her sleeping face. She, unlike Bruce, was resting peacefully. 

* * *

When Wanda felt herself waking up, part of her fought against it. Here, in her heavy sleep, there had been nothing. No weight on her shoulders, no missing brother, no shame at what she had done to a man with her actions… Just weightlessness.

But she felt Vision's familiar hand in her own, his fingers tracing a scar on her forearm.

"Vis…"

The hand on her tightened, and she felt fingers carding through her hair gently. Her eyes slid open, slowly, letting the light trickle in at a pace her pupils could handle. When she finally had her sight restored, Vision was all she could see. A tear trickled from the corner of her eye, and he caught it with a fingertip.

"What have I done?" she gasped.

Vis pressed his lips to her forehead, hands planted on either side of her face, cradling her like something precious.

"If a stone is thrown into the water, would you blame it for the ripples it creates? Or the hand that threw it?"

She understood his point, his need to take the guilt from her. But some things she needed to carry, or no one else would.

"Thank you, Vis, but I need to face this. I am not a stone, and I made these choices," she said. He only nodded, feeling her hand clench over his own. He moved back, never breaking their hold, to let her rise.  
Wanda turned her head directly towards Bruce, to where he lay across from her. She tried not to tune into his body, tried not to feel his pain, tap into his memories again. He rested fitfully, and she could feel the memories crawling beneath his flesh. Nightmares, the ones he had lived over and over again. She clamped down on Vision's fingers, the only link to the world around her.

Natasha looked up from her position by Bruce, her own hand wrapped around his as tightly as Wanda's around Vision's. But unlike them, Bruce did not grip back.

"I can wake him up," Wanda offered quietly. Natasha nodded once, curtly, not wanting to meet the girl's eyes. Wanda couldn't blame her. They all knew who had really done this to Bruce.

 _You are not monstrous_.

She tried to repeat it to herself, but couldn't bring herself to feel it.

Wanda closed the space between them, feeling Vision's hand in her own as he trailed behind her. Silent and supporting, he didn't question or condemn her. She didn't need to look back to know he would be with her.

Her other hand reached out to brush through Bruce's cropped hair, to rest her fingers lightly on his forehead as her glow briefly surrounded him.

When he woke up, he woke up fighting. He knocked Wanda's hand away and yanked his own from Natasha's grip. It took only a second for his eyes to find Wanda, and there she saw all the things he'd been dreaming about. The pain, the agony in that gaze was enough to drown in. She gripped Vis' hand like a lifeline, and brought her other hand down to Bruce's. He was beyond words, but into her touch, she fed reassurances.

 _You are safe, there are only friends here. You are safe, Bruce, it is over._ _  
_ _  
_She repeated this over and over into his skin, feeling it rush up his bloodstream and into his panicked gaze until, at last, his heart slowed and his eyes cleared enough to see her.

"Wanda?" he asked through cracked, parched lips. His tongue moved like a stranger, and Wanda suddenly had the sensation of a sickening slap and a rush of blood into her mouth. She bit her bottom lip, willing the pain away, forcing herself to focus on Bruce.

"I'm here," she whispered through her tears. Bruce turned his hand beneath hers, and loosely wrapped it around her own. The gasp that tore its way from her mouth made him tighten his hold.

"As am I," he said, a small smile quirking the corner of his mouth despite the grimace it caused.

At that, Wanda lost the small bit of composure she had managed to cling on to. For so long she had thought him dead, nearly at her hand, and with three words he had figured that all out. Had called out the burden she carried, took back her guilt, and calmed a storm that had been building in her since Pietro's death. His letter, for all of his words, was nothing compared to the feeling of seeing him alive and hearing the words out of his mouth.

She collapsed onto her knees, burying her head into his shoulder and sobbing out her agony, and his. He stroked her hair gently, voice so tired but still so kind as he reassured her, whispered Romanian into her ear, letting her hear his voice in her own language.

"This is not your fault," he said to her in Romanian. And he was broken, she could tell from the way speaking seemed to hurt him, how every breath caused a twitch in his arm. She could feel his pain flowing into her with every point of contact they shared, but she couldn't bring herself to pull back, to separate herself.

No, Wanda wasn't a child, but Bruce held her like one all the same, and a hole somewhere inside of her slowly closed with the knowledge that the man she had killed, the man she had tortured, the man who had forgiven her from beyond the grave, was here in her arms. Alive, maybe not so whole, but alive.

 _You are not monstrous._ _  
_ _  
_The words flowed through his veins, pulsing inside of him until Wanda knew he felt it.

"No, you aren't," he said, and simply held her as she cried.


End file.
